trans.rb

# encoding: UTF-8

require 'rubygems'
require 'bundler/setup'
require 'active_support/inflector'
require 'iconv'

puts %[
This is why String#encode does not replace Iconv, and neither 
does ActiveSupport::Inflector#transliterate:

]

# This is our test string with some non-ASCII chars
string = %[This is a “smart quoted string”. This us an ümlaut. Weßia.]

puts   %[
  String#encode as UTF-8 (this is redundant; it's our base string)
  #{string.encode("UTF-8", :invalid => :replace, :undef => :replace, :replace => "?")}

  Transliterate to ASCII using Iconv
  #{Iconv.new('ASCII//TRANSLIT', 'UTF-8').iconv(string)}

  Transliterate using ActiveSupport::Inflector
  #{ActiveSupport::Inflector.transliterate(string)}
]