exec status with no command is 0 but no redirection

[fpo]

Configuration Information [Automatically generated, do not change]:
Machine: x86_64
OS: linux-gnu
Compiler: gcc
Compilation CFLAGS:  -DPROGRAM='bash' -DCONF_HOSTTYPE='x86_64' 
-DCONF_OSTYPE='linux-gnu' -DCONF_MACHTYPE='x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu' 
-DCONF_VENDOR='unknown' -DLOCALEDIR='/usr/local/share/locale' 
-DPACKAGE='bash' -DSHELL -DHAVE_CONFIG_H   -I.  -I. -I./include 
-I./lib   -g -O2
uname output: Linux pc9 2.6.31.13-desktop-1mnb #1 SMP Tue Apr 27 
20:37:44 EDT 2010 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E8500  @ 3.16GHz 
GNU/Linux
Machine Type: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu

Bash Version: 4.1
Patch Level: 0
Release Status: release

Description:
Well, I am not sure it is a bug. I just tried this after reading the 
manual page and the exec built-in command. I was expecting to have the 
iconv command be called on the standard output of the shell script.

The script below outputs 0 as exec return status and the string is yet 
given as ISO-8859-1. One of these is probably not correct though, shall 
we expect a status = 1 if no redirection is done?

Repeat-By:

A simple script, that should be saved in ISO-8859-1 encoding system:

#!/bin/bash

exec | iconv -f ISO_8859-1 -t UTF-8
echo exec status $?

echo " 15) Valérie Leulliot - Mon homme blessé "
exit 0


Thanks a lot and regards.
- fpo