diff --git a/examples/src/main/python/streaming/direct_kafka_wordcount.py b/examples/src/main/python/streaming/direct_kafka_wordcount.py
index 6ef188a220..ea20678b9a 100644
--- a/examples/src/main/python/streaming/direct_kafka_wordcount.py
+++ b/examples/src/main/python/streaming/direct_kafka_wordcount.py
@@ -23,8 +23,8 @@
  http://kafka.apache.org/documentation.html#quickstart
 
  and then run the example
-    `$ bin/spark-submit --jars external/kafka-assembly/target/scala-*/\
-      spark-streaming-kafka-assembly-*.jar \
+    `$ bin/spark-submit --jars \
+      external/kafka-assembly/target/scala-*/spark-streaming-kafka-assembly-*.jar \
       examples/src/main/python/streaming/direct_kafka_wordcount.py \
       localhost:9092 test`
 """
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ from pyspark.streaming.kafka import KafkaUtils
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     if len(sys.argv) != 3:
-        print >> sys.stderr, "Usage: direct_kafka_wordcount.py <broker_list> <topic>"
+        print("Usage: direct_kafka_wordcount.py <broker_list> <topic>", file=sys.stderr)
         exit(-1)
 
     sc = SparkContext(appName="PythonStreamingDirectKafkaWordCount")
diff --git a/examples/src/main/python/streaming/flume_wordcount.py b/examples/src/main/python/streaming/flume_wordcount.py
index 091b64d8c4..d75bc6daac 100644
--- a/examples/src/main/python/streaming/flume_wordcount.py
+++ b/examples/src/main/python/streaming/flume_wordcount.py
@@ -23,8 +23,9 @@
  https://flume.apache.org/documentation.html
 
  and then run the example
-    `$ bin/spark-submit --jars external/flume-assembly/target/scala-*/\
-      spark-streaming-flume-assembly-*.jar examples/src/main/python/streaming/flume_wordcount.py \
+    `$ bin/spark-submit --jars \
+      external/flume-assembly/target/scala-*/spark-streaming-flume-assembly-*.jar \
+      examples/src/main/python/streaming/flume_wordcount.py \
       localhost 12345
 """
 from __future__ import print_function
diff --git a/examples/src/main/python/streaming/kafka_wordcount.py b/examples/src/main/python/streaming/kafka_wordcount.py
index b178e7899b..8d697f620f 100644
--- a/examples/src/main/python/streaming/kafka_wordcount.py
+++ b/examples/src/main/python/streaming/kafka_wordcount.py
@@ -23,8 +23,9 @@
  http://kafka.apache.org/documentation.html#quickstart
 
  and then run the example
-    `$ bin/spark-submit --jars external/kafka-assembly/target/scala-*/\
-      spark-streaming-kafka-assembly-*.jar examples/src/main/python/streaming/kafka_wordcount.py \
+    `$ bin/spark-submit --jars \
+      external/kafka-assembly/target/scala-*/spark-streaming-kafka-assembly-*.jar \
+      examples/src/main/python/streaming/kafka_wordcount.py \
       localhost:2181 test`
 """
 from __future__ import print_function
diff --git a/examples/src/main/python/streaming/mqtt_wordcount.py b/examples/src/main/python/streaming/mqtt_wordcount.py
index 617ce5ea67..abf9c0e21d 100644
--- a/examples/src/main/python/streaming/mqtt_wordcount.py
+++ b/examples/src/main/python/streaming/mqtt_wordcount.py
@@ -26,8 +26,9 @@
  http://www.eclipse.org/paho/#getting-started
 
  and then run the example
-    `$ bin/spark-submit --jars external/mqtt-assembly/target/scala-*/\
-      spark-streaming-mqtt-assembly-*.jar examples/src/main/python/streaming/mqtt_wordcount.py \
+    `$ bin/spark-submit --jars \
+      external/mqtt-assembly/target/scala-*/spark-streaming-mqtt-assembly-*.jar \
+      examples/src/main/python/streaming/mqtt_wordcount.py \
       tcp://localhost:1883 foo`
 """
 
diff --git a/examples/src/main/python/streaming/queue_stream.py b/examples/src/main/python/streaming/queue_stream.py
index dcd6a0fc6f..b3808907f7 100644
--- a/examples/src/main/python/streaming/queue_stream.py
+++ b/examples/src/main/python/streaming/queue_stream.py
@@ -36,8 +36,8 @@ if __name__ == "__main__":
     # Create the queue through which RDDs can be pushed to
     # a QueueInputDStream
     rddQueue = []
-    for i in xrange(5):
-        rddQueue += [ssc.sparkContext.parallelize([j for j in xrange(1, 1001)], 10)]
+    for i in range(5):
+        rddQueue += [ssc.sparkContext.parallelize([j for j in range(1, 1001)], 10)]
 
     # Create the QueueInputDStream and use it do some processing
     inputStream = ssc.queueStream(rddQueue)
diff --git a/python/pyspark/streaming/flume.py b/python/pyspark/streaming/flume.py
index cbb573f226..c0cdc50d8d 100644
--- a/python/pyspark/streaming/flume.py
+++ b/python/pyspark/streaming/flume.py
@@ -31,7 +31,9 @@ __all__ = ['FlumeUtils', 'utf8_decoder']
 
 def utf8_decoder(s):
     """ Decode the unicode as UTF-8 """
-    return s and s.decode('utf-8')
+    if s is None:
+        return None
+    return s.decode('utf-8')
 
 
 class FlumeUtils(object):
diff --git a/python/pyspark/streaming/kafka.py b/python/pyspark/streaming/kafka.py
index dc5b7fd878..8a814c64c0 100644
--- a/python/pyspark/streaming/kafka.py
+++ b/python/pyspark/streaming/kafka.py
@@ -29,7 +29,9 @@ __all__ = ['Broker', 'KafkaUtils', 'OffsetRange', 'TopicAndPartition', 'utf8_dec
 
 def utf8_decoder(s):
     """ Decode the unicode as UTF-8 """
-    return s and s.decode('utf-8')
+    if s is None:
+        return None
+    return s.decode('utf-8')
 
 
 class KafkaUtils(object):
diff --git a/python/pyspark/streaming/kinesis.py b/python/pyspark/streaming/kinesis.py
index bcfe2703fe..34be5880e1 100644
--- a/python/pyspark/streaming/kinesis.py
+++ b/python/pyspark/streaming/kinesis.py
@@ -26,7 +26,9 @@ __all__ = ['KinesisUtils', 'InitialPositionInStream', 'utf8_decoder']
 
 def utf8_decoder(s):
     """ Decode the unicode as UTF-8 """
-    return s and s.decode('utf-8')
+    if s is None:
+        return None
+    return s.decode('utf-8')
 
 
 class KinesisUtils(object):