bytes is a synonym for str (in Python 2)

src/runtime/builtin_modules/builtins.cpp

@@ -1113,6 +1113,7 @@ void setupBuiltins() {
                                           boxRTFunction((void*)vars, UNKNOWN, 1, 1, false, false), "vars", { NULL }));
     builtins_module->giveAttr("object", object_cls);
     builtins_module->giveAttr("str", str_cls);
+    builtins_module->giveAttr("bytes", str_cls);
     assert(unicode_cls);
     builtins_module->giveAttr("unicode", unicode_cls);
     builtins_module->giveAttr("basestring", basestring_cls);

test/tests/builtins.py

@@ -88,3 +88,7 @@ print c.s([3,2,1])
 l = range(5)
 print sorted(l, key=lambda x:-x)
 print l
+
+print bytes
+print bytes is str
+print repr(b'1234')