jwt.encode returns str instead of bytes in 2.0.0a1

Latest pre-release 2.0.0a1 brings change of function jwt.encode, that doesn’t return bytes as in release 1.7.1, but str. Is it a bug or will it stay that way?

I am asking, because it breaks https://github.com/SimpleJWT/django-rest-framework-simplejwt and I need to know where the fix should be done.

Expected Result

jwt.encode to return bytes

Actual Result

jwt.encode returns str

Reproduction Steps

import jwt

encoded = jwt.encode({'some': 'payload'}, 'secret', algorithm='HS256')
print(encoded)

System Information

$ python -m jwt.help

{
  "cryptography": {
    "version": "3.1"
  },
  "implementation": {
    "name": "CPython",
    "version": "3.7.3"
  },
  "platform": {
    "release": "5.9.1-arch1-1",
    "system": "Linux"
  },
  "pyjwt": {
    "version": "2.0.0a1"
  }
}

[jpadilla]

It is in fact an expected change.

[jpadilla]

I appreciate the feedback, thanks.

While I do agree that I could’ve planned out a whole series of releases with deprecation warnings, compatibility layers, and the whole lot, I ultimately decided against that because that does take time and energy to execute. I knew I wanted to make breaking changes, I knew I wanted to add new features, address bugs, etc so I decided to just release new major version.

It’s often specified simply pyjwt in dependencies without version restrictions.

I’d say this is part of the problem, one I shouldn’t have to be necessarily constrained by. I’d argue that everyone should just be pinning the versions of their dependencies down to specifics, going from one version to another(specially major versions) isn’t a thing to be taken lightly, it needs some level of due diligence either by computers(CI, tests, automation, etc) or humans(docs, release notes, etc).

Anyways, something I’ll continue keeping in mind for future releases. ✌️