docs: def toBytes(text, encoding=DEFAULT_ENCODING):
      """
      Converts the inputted text to base string bytes array.
      
      :param      text | <variant>
      
      :return     <str> || <bytes> (python3)
      """
      if not text:
          return text
  
      if not isinstance(text, bytes_type):
          text = text.encode(encoding)
  
      return text