diff --git a/gdb/ChangeLog b/gdb/ChangeLog
index 613db8031a5..d8f6b529e88 100644
--- a/gdb/ChangeLog
+++ b/gdb/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+2009-12-01  Tristan Gingold  <gingold@adacore.com>
+
+	* charset.c (_initialize_charset): Set a default value to
+	auto_host_charset_name if empty.
+
 2009-12-01  Joseph Myers  <joseph@codesourcery.com>
 
 	* gcore.c: Include solib.h.
diff --git a/gdb/charset.c b/gdb/charset.c
index f5281eda169..4bc8894f15d 100644
--- a/gdb/charset.c
+++ b/gdb/charset.c
@@ -818,8 +818,9 @@ _initialize_charset (void)
 #ifdef HAVE_LANGINFO_CODESET
   auto_host_charset_name = nl_langinfo (CODESET);
   /* Solaris will return `646' here -- but the Solaris iconv then
-     does not accept this.  */
-  if (!strcmp (auto_host_charset_name, "646"))
+     does not accept this.  Darwin (and maybe FreeBSD) may return "" here,
+     which GNU libiconv doesn't like (infinite loop).  */
+  if (!strcmp (auto_host_charset_name, "646") || !*auto_host_charset_name)
     auto_host_charset_name = "ASCII";
   target_charset_name = auto_host_charset_name;