Returns a copy of +self+ that has ASCII-8BIT encoding; the underlying bytes are not modified: s = "\x99" s.encoding # => # t = s.b # => "\x99" t.encoding # => # s = "\u4095" # => "䂕" s.encoding # => # s.bytes # => [228, 130, 149] t = s.b # => "\xE4\x82\x95" t.encoding # => # t.bytes # => [228, 130, 149]