Returns an array of the bytes in +self+:

  'hello'.bytes  # => [104, 101, 108, 108, 111]
  'こんにちは'.bytes
  # => [227, 129, 147, 227, 130, 147, 227, 129, 171, 227, 129, 161, 227, 129, 175]

Related: see {Converting to Non-String}[rdoc-ref:String@Converting+to+Non-String].
