EncodingKawai - little sintax sugar for ruby force_encoding, also working on 1.8.7.

gem 'encoding-kawai'

str._utf8 # str.respond_to?(:force_encoding) ? str.force_encoding('utf-8') : str
str._binary # str.respond_to?(:force_encoding) ? str.force_encoding('binary') : str

Extend object.

require 'encoding-kawai/object'

[str1, str2]._utf8
{str1 => str2}._utf8
...