diff --git a/letsencrypt/__init__.py b/letsencrypt/__init__.py
index 11f2f3f01..9fe93c4db 100644
--- a/letsencrypt/__init__.py
+++ b/letsencrypt/__init__.py
@@ -1,3 +1,2 @@
 """Let's Encrypt."""
-
 __version__ = "0.1"
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index a6038db56..6c30593c0 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -5,13 +5,17 @@ import codecs
 
 from setuptools import setup
 
+
+def read_file(filename, encoding='utf8'):
+    """read unicode from given file"""
+    with codecs.open(filename, encoding=encoding) as fd:
+        return fd.read()
+
 here = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
 
 # read version number (and other metadata) from package init
 init_fn = os.path.join(here, 'letsencrypt', '__init__.py')
-with codecs.open(init_fn, encoding='utf8') as meta_file:
-    content = meta_file.read()
-meta = dict(re.findall(r"""__([a-z]+)__ = "([^"]+)""", content))
+meta = dict(re.findall(r"""__([a-z]+)__ = "([^"]+)""", read_file(init_fn)))
 
 install_requires = [
     'argparse',