How to Make Your Rails 2.3 App Work with Ruby 1.9

Ruby 1.9 + Rails 2.3If you’re like me, you’ve got a Rails 2.3.x application running on Ruby 1.8.x – or perhaps Ruby Enterprise Edition. Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but Ruby 1.9.2 is about twice as fast as even REE 1.8.7. So, you’ll probably want to upgrade to the new version of Ruby.

Problem is, you upgrade Ruby and then your Rails 2.3 app starts whining about character encoding problems. Heck, it might not even run! So you search the net in vain trying to find a simple, step-by-step explanation of what you need to do to make your app run with the speedy 1.9.x version of Ruby. And, you pretty much come up empty handed.

Until now!

Here I shall endeavor to outline all the steps necessary to install and convert your Rails 2.3.x app to work flawlessly with Ruby 1.9.x.

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