gistfile1.txt

eschaton :: ~/Projects » cat scratch.rb     
# encoding: utf-8

str = "This is ä strïng with ümläuts in it"
regex = / (\p{Alpha}) /

puts __ENCODING__
puts str.encoding
puts regex.encoding

if str =~ regex
  puts "match: #{$1.inspect}"
else
  puts "No match :("
end
eschaton :: ~/Projects » rvm ruby scratch.rb

ruby-1.9.1-p376: ruby 1.9.1p376 (2009-12-07 revision 26041) [i386-darwin10.3.0] 

UTF-8
UTF-8
UTF-8
match: "ä"

ruby-1.9.2-preview1: ruby 1.9.2dev (2009-07-18 trunk 24186) [i386-darwin10.2.0] 

UTF-8
UTF-8
UTF-8
match: "ä"