Convert bytes to a string in Python 3
python, python-3.x, string
Solution
Decode the `bytes` object to produce a string:
>>> b"abcde".decode("utf-8")
'abcde'
The above example assumes that the `bytes` object is in UTF-8, because it is a common encoding. However, you should use the encoding your data is actually in!
Problem
I captured the standard output of an external program into a `bytes` object: ``` >>> from subprocess import * >>> stdout = Popen(['ls', '-l'], stdout=PIPE).communicate()[0] >>> stdout b'total 0\n-rw-rw-r-- 1 thomas thomas 0 Mar 3 07:03 file1\n-rw-rw-r-- 1 thomas thomas 0 Mar 3 07:03 file2\n' ``` I want to convert that to a normal Python string, so that I can print it like this: ``` >>> print(stdout) -rw-rw-r-- 1 thomas thomas 0 Mar 3 07:03 file1 -rw-rw-r-- 1 thomas thomas 0 Mar 3 07:03 file2 ``` How do I convert the `bytes` object to a `str` with Python 3? See Best way to convert string to bytes in Python 3? for the other way around.