config_initializers_string_encoding.rb

class String

  def _dump level
    #Strings are sometimes frozen, dup-i-dup before we can encode
    begin
      self.dup.encode Encoding::ASCII_8BIT
    rescue
      self.dup.force_encoding Encoding::ASCII_8BIT
    end
  end

  def self._load args
    if args.respond_to? :encode
      begin
        args.encode Encoding::UTF_8
      rescue
        args.force_encoding Encoding::UTF_8
      end
    else
      args
    end
  end

end