Improved comparison of byte strings. When comparing bytes, the assertion message used to show the byte numeric value when showing the differences:: def test(): > assert b'spam' == b'eggs' E AssertionError: assert b'spam' == b'eggs' E At index 0 diff: 115 != 101 E Use -v to get the full diff It now shows the actual ascii representation instead, which is often more useful:: def test(): > assert b'spam' == b'eggs' E AssertionError: assert b'spam' == b'eggs' E At index 0 diff: b's' != b'e' E Use -v to get the full diff