Return tokens as string not bytesstring-tokens

3 files changed, 8 insertions, 4 deletions

diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index 9823682..660aca7 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -41,7 +41,8 @@ Usage
 
     >>> import jwt
     >>> encoded = jwt.encode({'some': 'payload'}, 'secret', algorithm='HS256')
-    'eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb21lIjoicGF5bG9hZCJ9.4twFt5NiznN84AWoo1d7KO1T_yoc0Z6XOpOVswacPZg'
+    >>> print(encoded)
+    eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb21lIjoicGF5bG9hZCJ9.4twFt5NiznN84AWoo1d7KO1T_yoc0Z6XOpOVswacPZg
 
     >>> jwt.decode(encoded, 'secret', algorithms=['HS256'])
     {'some': 'payload'}
diff --git a/docs/index.rst b/docs/index.rst
index e717bdd..2ad1e09 100644
--- a/docs/index.rst
+++ b/docs/index.rst
@@ -30,12 +30,13 @@ Example Usage
 -------------
 
 .. code-block:: python
+.. doctest::
 
     >>> import jwt
 
     >>> encoded_jwt = jwt.encode({'some': 'payload'}, 'secret', algorithm='HS256')
-    >>> encoded_jwt
-    'eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb21lIjoicGF5bG9hZCJ9.4twFt5NiznN84AWoo1d7KO1T_yoc0Z6XOpOVswacPZg'
+    >>> print(encoded_jwt)
+    eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb21lIjoicGF5bG9hZCJ9.4twFt5NiznN84AWoo1d7KO1T_yoc0Z6XOpOVswacPZg
 
     >>> jwt.decode(encoded_jwt, 'secret', algorithms=['HS256'])
     {'some': 'payload'}
diff --git a/jwt/api_jws.py b/jwt/api_jws.py
index 287dbf4..84465c1 100644
--- a/jwt/api_jws.py
+++ b/jwt/api_jws.py
@@ -126,7 +126,9 @@ class PyJWS:
 
         segments.append(base64url_encode(signature))
 
-        return b".".join(segments)
+        encoded_string = b".".join(segments)
+
+        return encoded_string.decode("utf-8")
 
     def decode(
         self,