Remove bytes in decimal default value

Author: ccronca

doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.2.txt

@@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ Other enhancements
 - ``Index.astype()`` now accepts an optional boolean argument ``copy``, which allows optional copying if the requirements on dtype are satisfied (:issue:`13209`)
 - ``Categorical.astype()`` now accepts an optional boolean argument ``copy``, effective when dtype is categorical (:issue:`13209`)
 
-- The ``pd.read_html()`` has gained support for the ``decimal`` option (:issue:`12907`)
+- ``pd.read_html()`` has gained support for the ``decimal`` option (:issue:`12907`)
 
 .. _whatsnew_0182.api:
 

pandas/io/html.py

@@ -757,7 +757,7 @@ def _parse(flavor, io, match, header, index_col, skiprows,
 def read_html(io, match='.+', flavor=None, header=None, index_col=None,
               skiprows=None, attrs=None, parse_dates=False,
               tupleize_cols=False, thousands=',', encoding=None,
-              decimal=b'.'):
+              decimal='.'):
     r"""Read HTML tables into a ``list`` of ``DataFrame`` objects.
 
     Parameters
@@ -837,6 +837,8 @@ def read_html(io, match='.+', flavor=None, header=None, index_col=None,
         Character to recognize as decimal point (e.g. use ',' for European
         data).
 
+        .. versionadded:: 0.18.2
+
     Returns
     -------
     dfs : list of DataFrames