ActiveSupport/parameterize incorrectly assumes you have set $KCODE='u'

I'm developing a plugin which uses the AS method parameterize to create a url-like string. When I try to test the plugin, all tests result in the error undefined method ´normalize´ for ´whatever´:String. I'm using files created by script/generate plugin, so all should be correct, aside from the problem described by Ticket #1878.

Then I realize the problem was that active_support/multibyte wasn't being loaded for some reason. The reason is actually you have to set $KCODE = 'u' manually in your tests to force AS to load multibyte.

To reproduce de error, try to run this to simple scripts (I'm using ruby 1.8.7)

# Will fail with undefined method error
require 'rubygems'
require 'active_support'
puts "some random string".parameterize

# Will work
$KCODE = 'u'
require 'rubygems'
require 'active_support'
puts "some random string".parameterize
# => 'some-random-string'

I think this either an incorrect behavior of parameterize (it should skip 'normalize' if it's not defined) or an incorrect use of KCODE in active_support which I thought it was by default set to 'u' since the latter versions of Rails 1.x.