Allow units to be defined by bytes

Changelog.rst

@@ -1,3 +1,13 @@
+Version 3.3.7
+-------------
+
+**2024-02-??**
+
+* Allow units to be defined by `bytes`
+  (https://github.com/NCAS-CMS/cfunits/issues/54)
+
+----
+
 Version 3.3.6
 -------------
 

cfunits/test/test_Units.py

@@ -421,6 +421,10 @@ def test_Units__dask_tokenize__(self):
         self.assertEqual(tokenize(u), tokenize(Units("bad units")))
         self.assertNotEqual(tokenize(u), tokenize(Units("worse units")))
 
+    def test_Units_bytes(self):
+        """Tests initializing with bytes."""
+        self.assertEqual(Units("m"), Units(b"m"))
+
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     print("cfunits version:", cfunits.__version__)

cfunits/units.py

@@ -801,9 +801,17 @@ def __init__(
                 # ----------------------------------------------------
                 ut_unit = _cached_ut_unit.get(units, None)
                 if ut_unit is None:
+                    try:
+                        # Try for units being bytes
+                        units = units.decode("utf-8")
+                    except AttributeError:
+                        # units is not bytes
+                        pass
+
                     ut_unit = _ut_parse(
                         _ut_system, _c_char_p(units.encode("utf-8")), _UT_ASCII
                     )
+
                     if not ut_unit:
                         ut_unit = None
                         self._isvalid = False