Proper use of DOCTYPE?

["Bill Kearney" <wkearney99@hotmail.com>]

Hi all,

What's really supposed to be in the header of a document to allow proper use of
charater encodings?

What part does DOCTYPE play in this situation?  Or does encoding="" handle it
well enough?

é for example.  What in the header will let the validator know how to
handle this and others?

I ask this because I'm interested in the diversity of opinions here.
I want to be able to correctly inform people creating XML newsfeeds about what
to use and where.

The feed that raised this question, although it's not unique to this problem,
is:
http://www.syndic8.com/feedinfo.php?FeedID=6858

It's using the 'right' encoding but not instructing the validator on what
encoding to use.

Thanks,
Bill Kearney