diff -r 9913ab26ca6f Doc/library/asyncio-subprocess.rst
--- a/Doc/library/asyncio-subprocess.rst	Sat Jun 14 10:23:20 2014 +0100
+++ b/Doc/library/asyncio-subprocess.rst	Sat Jun 14 23:17:10 2014 +0700
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
 
 .. function:: create_subprocess_shell(cmd, stdin=None, stdout=None, stderr=None, loop=None, limit=None, \*\*kwds)
 
-   Run the shell command *cmd* given as a string. Return a :class:`~asyncio.subprocess.Process`
+   Run the shell command *cmd* given as a string or a bytes. Return a :class:`~asyncio.subprocess.Process`
    instance.
 
    The optional *limit* parameter sets the buffer limit passed to the
@@ -94,7 +94,7 @@
 
 .. method:: BaseEventLoop.subprocess_shell(protocol_factory, cmd, \*, stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, \*\*kwargs)
 
-   Create a subprocess from *cmd*, which is a string using the platform's
+   Create a subprocess from *cmd*, which is a string or a bytes using the platform's
    "shell" syntax. This is similar to the standard library
    :class:`subprocess.Popen` class called with ``shell=True``.
 
diff -r 9913ab26ca6f Lib/asyncio/base_events.py
--- a/Lib/asyncio/base_events.py	Sat Jun 14 10:23:20 2014 +0100
+++ b/Lib/asyncio/base_events.py	Sat Jun 14 23:17:10 2014 +0700
@@ -644,7 +644,7 @@
                          universal_newlines=False, shell=True, bufsize=0,
                          **kwargs):
         if not isinstance(cmd, (bytes, str)):
-            raise ValueError("cmd must be a string")
+            raise ValueError("cmd must be a string or a bytes")
         if universal_newlines:
             raise ValueError("universal_newlines must be False")
         if not shell:
diff -r 9913ab26ca6f Lib/test/test_asyncio/test_base_events.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_asyncio/test_base_events.py	Sat Jun 14 10:23:20 2014 +0100
+++ b/Lib/test/test_asyncio/test_base_events.py	Sat Jun 14 23:17:10 2014 +0700
@@ -320,7 +320,7 @@
             asyncio.SubprocessProtocol, *args, bufsize=4096)
 
     def test_subprocess_shell_invalid_args(self):
-        # expected a string, not an int or a list
+        # expected a string or a bytes, not an int or a list
         self.assertRaises(TypeError,
             self.loop.run_until_complete, self.loop.subprocess_shell,
             asyncio.SubprocessProtocol, 123)