Ruby 1.9: use UTF-8 for default internal and external encodings.

railties/CHANGELOG

 *Edge*
 
+* Ruby 1.9: use UTF-8 for default internal and external encodings.  [Jeremy Kemper]
+
 * Added db/seeds.rb as a default file for storing seed data for the database. Can be loaded with rake db:seed (or created alongside the db with db:setup). (This is also known as the "Stop Putting Gawd Damn Seed Data In Your Migrations" feature) [DHH]
 
 

railties/lib/initializer.rb

@@ -426,10 +426,14 @@ def load_application_classes
     # should override this behaviour and set the relevant +default_charset+
     # on ActionController::Base.
     #
-    # For Ruby 1.9, this does nothing. Specify the default encoding in the Ruby
-    # shebang line if you don't want UTF-8.
+    # For Ruby 1.9, UTF-8 is the default internal and external encoding.
     def initialize_encoding
-      $KCODE='u' if RUBY_VERSION < '1.9'
+      if RUBY_VERSION < '1.9'
+        $KCODE='u'
+      else
+        Encoding.default_internal = Encoding::UTF_8
+        Encoding.default_external = Encoding::UTF_8
+      end
     end
 
     # This initialization routine does nothing unless <tt>:active_record</tt>