Make external API consistently support python3 strings for topic.

1 files changed, 3 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/kafka/consumer/base.py b/kafka/consumer/base.py
index 0bbf46c..2bd42eb 100644
--- a/kafka/consumer/base.py
+++ b/kafka/consumer/base.py
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ from kafka.common import (
     UnknownTopicOrPartitionError, check_error
 )
 
-from kafka.util import ReentrantTimer
+from kafka.util import kafka_bytestring, ReentrantTimer
 
 log = logging.getLogger("kafka")
 
@@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ class Consumer(object):
                  auto_commit_every_t=AUTO_COMMIT_INTERVAL):
 
         self.client = client
-        self.topic = topic
-        self.group = group
+        self.topic = kafka_bytestring(topic)
+        self.group = None if group is None else kafka_bytestring(group)
         self.client.load_metadata_for_topics(topic)
         self.offsets = {}