Return *text* as a unicode string. All text in Python 3 is unicode, so
    this just returns *text* unchanged.

def to_unicode(text):
    """
    Return *text* as a unicode string. All text in Python 3 is unicode, so
    this just returns *text* unchanged.
    """
    if not isinstance(text, str):
        tmpl = 'expected unicode string, got %s value %s'
        raise TypeError(tmpl % (type(text), text))
    return text