How to decode bytes in python So if the need arrives, you can develop your program to ignore any characters that it cannot decode by simply adding the ignore argument like this: See relevant content for datatofish. 509 certificates. fromhex() May 11, 2013 · Bytes literals are always prefixed with 'b' or 'B'; they produce an instance of the bytes type instead of the str type. Here is some example code that demonstrates how to use the decode() method to convert a byte string to a string: May 12, 2018 · You'll have to use unicode_escape instead: >>> b"\\123omething special". loads() with decode() Using json. decode() method Jan 6, 2020 · Similar to encoding a string, we can decode a stream of bytes to a string object, using the decode() function. The string contains some no-printable characters (for this reason I choose base64 encoding). loads() with decode() In this example, we use the json. Here’s an example: Feb 6, 2024 · In this article, we will see how to convert a bytes array into JSON format in Python. The bytes type is an immutable sequence of bytes. They can also be enclosed in matching groups of three single or double quotes (these are generally referred to as triple-quoted strings). If your binary data is already UTF-8 encoded, you can simply decode it to a text string: Nov 22, 2022 · I'm dealing with a communication channel that: Converts \n characters into \r\n; Removes 0xfd, 0xfe, and 0xff characters entirely; Not ideal for transferring binary data. decode(encoding='utf-8', errors='strict'). Jul 12, 2013 · I suggest to add the following to complete the answer. decode() UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x86 in position 9: invalid start byte Apr 3, 2020 · Homepage Blog Contact News. May 28, 2019 · As the str and bytes types cannot be mixed, you must always explicitly convert between them. # Python 2. 7 unicode) you'll need to encode to bytes first, then decode with unicode_escape. 1 day ago · It’s possible to do all the work yourself: open a file, read an 8-bit bytes object from it, and convert the bytes with bytes. strip() There is no strip() builtin in either Python 2 or Python 3. For non-unicode strings (i. Jul 18, 2023 · After importing the module, you can encode and decode data using the following functions: * b64encode(): This function encodes a bytes-like object to ASCII bytes using the specified encoding. ). Below I want to show you a basic example of how to do this, but before continuing I want to warn you that PDF files may contain malicious content that may jeopardize the security of users viewing such PDF files. Dec 12, 2012 · In strings (or Unicode objects in Python 2), \u has a special meaning, namely saying, "here comes a Unicode character specified by it's Unicode ID". They may only contain ASCII characters; bytes with a numeric value of 128 or greater must be expressed with escapes. If I try to decode the data: x=ser. 141592654 as a C double, it's lost when it's converted to a C float (by struct. to_bytes: May 27, 2015 · pickle. py", line 26, in import_chr data = pd. The encoding defaults to 'utf-8'. You instead have UTF-8 data, decode it as such: Mar 5, 2012 · However, this is not your actual question. 1 day ago · The argument bytes must either be a bytes-like object or an iterable producing bytes. In a lot of cases they only contain alphanumeric ascii characters, which I want written to xml as such. This blog post will walk you through the fundamental concepts, usage methods, common practices, and best practices for decoding bytes in Python. decode('utf-8') (In Python 2. decode(encoding). From a developer’s point of view, the largest change in Python 3 is the handling of strings. loads to parse the JSON string into a Python dictionary (parsed_json). decode() I get the following error: Traceback (most recent call last): File "ser. x, bytes is the same thing as str, so you've already got a string. Your actual question is how to strip a bytes string. ""). Apr 10, 2023 · decoded_string = byte_string. x) base64. Apr 2, 2024 · I have Python 3. fro Mar 27, 2019 · Pandas Series. This happens in Python 2 just as much, but \Uxxxxxxxx only works in Unicode strings, so u'. decode() Why we do decode only for Python3 and doesn Oct 12, 2016 · import base64 encoded = base64. decode('utf-8') yields 'hello' . The first one is based on zip:. In this example, we begin with JSON data represented as bytes (json_data). This way, we can decode using my_b_string. Hence u"\u0432" will result in the character в. If byteorder is "big", the most significant byte is at the beginning of the byte array. decode('utf-8') as suggested by @Mad Physicist) Feb 8, 2024 · Convert between bytes and strings in Python's urllib module using encode() and decode(). ]+)", string)) for string in filter( bool, # non-empty Nov 22, 2015 · The Bytes Type. Jul 8, 2011 · Python has bytes-to-bytes standard codecs that perform convenient transformations like quoted-printable (fits into 7bits ascii), base64 (fits into alphanumerics), hex escaping, gzip and bz2 compression. from_bytes( bytes, byteorder, *, signed=False) The argument bytes must either be a bytes-like object or an iterable producing bytes. x you will receive a bytes literal. Feb 23, 2017 · #how to decode byte 0xff in python As we know this is hexadecimal encoding so , utf-8 , codec and other decoders are not able to decode this byte into string. Nov 7, 2012 · A string is already 'decoded', thus the str class has no 'decode' function. * b64decode(): This function decodes an ASCII bytes object to bytes using the specified encoding. Dec 13, 2014 · Is there any way to preprocess text files and skip these characters? UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0xa1 in position 1395: invalid start byte Jun 27, 2020 · @PetrKrampl accuracy of C float (single, 4 bytes) and C double (double, 8 bytes). The bytes() function returns an immutable bytes object that can then be stored inside a string Oct 15, 2019 · @rogueprocess By your description, Python has it right. Let’s explore a few techniques to convert a hex string to bytes. loads() Using bytes. Whatever the accuracy of storing 3. I am a bit of a newbie at Python, numpy, opencv etc! Apr 16, 2024 · You can use the decode() method to convert bytes to a string in Python. findall(r"(\d{4})([\d. loads() with str() Using json. decode method of bytes could convert bytes to string with the given encoding method. listdir(), some of them are encoded in UTF8 and some are CP1252. Using bytes. Other bytes I want to encode as hex values, so they can still be easily understood. Convert Bytes to String with decode() Let's take a look at how we can convert bytes to a String, using the built-in decode() method for the Nov 27, 2019 · Clarification: When I write an xml file, the strings are initially of type bytes, e. open('filename. decode('utf-8') print(string_data) # Output Hello, World! Mar 26, 2025 · Discover how to convert bytes to strings in Python using three simple methods: decode (), str () constructor, & codecs module. Aug 12, 2019 · In the source code of sqlalchemy I see following val = cursor. In Python 2, you could do: b'foo'. Is there a wa def bytes_to_base64_string(value: bytes) -> str: import base64 return base64. For example, given a dictionary {b'key1': b'value1', b'key2': b'value2'}, we might want to convert it to {'key1': 'value1', 'key2': 'value2'}. str. A str is really a byte sequence (in Python 2. I have a program that uses pyserial library to communicate with a serial device. Format: Since encode() converts a string to bytes, decode() simply does the reverse. Each chunk is printed to the console. dat file which was exported from Excel to be a tab-delimited file. Mar 8, 2025 · Converting bytes to integers in Python involves interpreting a sequence of byte data as a numerical value. This section provides various methods to decode binary data to UTF-8 properly. I can effectively use base64 to transfer binary data through it, but this makes the data being transferred 33% larger, which, when dealing with large amounts of binary data like I am, kinda sucks. – Feb 7, 2024 · Below are some of the ways by which we can convert bytes to JSON in Python: Using json. You just need ask the "library" to give you the request content in bytes and you will handle the decoding yourself (if library can't give you then it is trying to do black magic then you shouldn't use it). For example, if we try to use UTF-8 to decode a UTF-16-encoded version of nonlat above: Jun 12, 2024 · The main route to convert Python bytes to a string is the . Output. decode('ascii') # 'ZGF0YSB0byBiZSBlbmNvZGVk' Note that to get the original data back you don't need to re-encode it to bytes because b64decode() handles ASCII-only strings as well as bytes: Recently I have been having trouble opening specific UTF-16 encoded files in Python. decode. The sequence consists of integers in the range 0 to 255. b64decode will truncate any extra padding, provided there is enough in the first place. from_bytes() int. if you can help, that would be appreciated. Task is to process 52 files, to merge data in every sheet with corresponded sheets in the 52 files. fetchone()[0] if util. Python provides built-in functions and methods for reading a file in python efficiently. Jan 27, 2024 · Now let’s go through different techniques to convert binary data to UTF-8 encoded text in Python. endswith() Checks if a bytes object ends with a specific byte or not. Feb 3, 2016 · Personally, I love python's duck typing as much as the next guy. So, please no handle work advices. Instead of using open, import io and use io. encode('hex') In Python 3, str. You can continue your Python learning with the following tutorials and courses: Aug 13, 2024 · What is SyntaxError: (Unicode Error) 'Unicodeescape' Codec Can't Decode Bytes in Python? The "Unicode Error: 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes" occurs when Python's Unicode decoder encounters an invalid Unicode escape sequence in a string. py3k and isinstance(val, bytes): val = val. I feel like there should be a one-liner in Python 3 to do the same thing, rather than reading the entire line as a series of bytes (which I don't want to do) and then converting each part of the line separately. String literals can be enclosed within single quotes (i. loads() Using str() with decode and json. decode() Why we do decode only for Python3 and doesn Mar 26, 2014 · This is a common problem, so here's a relatively thorough illustration. On Python 3. bytearray. For example: For example: >>> b = bytearray([0x41, 0x42, 0xC3, 0x43]) Apr 10, 2023 · decoded_string = byte_string. This function is equivalent to str. The file encoding is: file -bi test. Python 3 is no more Unicode capable than Python 2. from_bytes() method is used to convert a byte object into an integer. 4 decode bytes. We also learned about how it handles errors in encoding/decoding via the errors parameter. Syntax: Series. . decode(encoding) Where byte_string is the input byte string that we want to decode and encoding is the character encoding used by the byte string. decode('utf-8') Encode str to UTF-8 bytes: s. This week's blog post is about handling errors when encoding and decoding data. g the regular str is now a Unicode string and the old str is now bytes. Dec 5, 2024 · For example, Python may attempt to decode a byte that doesn’t correspond to valid UTF-8 characters, leading to errors like: File "C:\Importer\src\dfman\importer. So, let’s dive in and start mastering Python bytes! TL;DR: What are Python Bytes and How Do I Use Them? Python bytes are a sequence of integers in the range of 0-255. decode() method on the result to convert the bytes object to a Python string. Byte data type. Here's an example: # Example: Convert bytes to string byte_data = b'Hello, World!' string_data = byte_data. I need to convert these bytes back to a readable string. encode(encoding) Jul 9, 2024 · Converting a sequence of bytes to a Unicode string is done by calling the decode() method on that str (in Python 2. 6 is the bytearray - similar to bytes, but mutable. It can gracefully handle Dec 20, 2012 · In Python 3. decode() method, which allows users to choose an encoding and an error-handling strategy. Since we can encode strings to make bytes, we can also decode bytes to make strings—but when decoding a bytes object, we must know the correct codec to use to get the correct result. decode are strictly for bytes Apr 14, 2025 · Converting bytes to integers in Python involves interpreting a sequence of byte data as a numerical value. This probably fixes 50% of people's Apr 15, 2025 · Converting a hexadecimal string to bytes in Python involves interpreting each pair of hexadecimal characters as a byte. Solved with a minor modification of the solution provided by @Christabella Irwanto: (i'm more of fan of the str. 0. It is a sequence of Unicode characters (encoded in UTF -16 or UTF-32 and entirely depends on Python’s compilation). Let me help you understand this: Sep 13, 2023 · We’ll cover everything from creating and using bytes in Python, to converting bytes to other data types and vice versa, and even troubleshooting common issues. By default, it uses the ‘utf-8’ encoding, but you can specify another if necessary. 2. 6. Python Convert a Bytes Array into JSON Format. Jan 6, 2020 · Conclusion. ’ Python Bytes to String base64 Feb 28, 2019 · Here str2 is a bytes object which I can decode easily using . csv', engine='python') Alternate Solution: Sublime Text: Open the csv file in Sublime text editor or VS Code. UnicodeDecodeError: 'charmap' codec can't decode byte 0x9d in position 3: character maps to . Jun 22, 2020 · Python and Bytes. find() Finds a specific byte or subsequence and return the index of the first occurence: index() Same as find: replace() Mar 22, 2017 · I have a Python 2. In practice, you probably won't come across such headers Aug 18, 2023 · It seems you just need to add padding to your bytes before decoding. So, something like: b'abc=' works just as well as b'abc==' (as does b'abc====='). It uses a specified encoding to perform the conversion. decode(). decode are strictly for bytes May 24, 2016 · As per String literals:. x >>> print 'Capit\\xc3\\xa1n\n'. py", line 16, in <module> x=ser. How to decode a unicode-like string in Python 3? 0. For example, the hex string 0xABCD would be represented as two bytes: 0xAB and 0xCD. In this article, we learned how to use the encode() and decode() methods to encode an input string and decode an encoded byte sequence. decode('ASCII') actually encodes bytes to string, not decodes them. How to decode the byte into string in python3. In other words, what's wrong is the name str (instead of the encode/decode order), which they fixed in 3. read(size) returns an empty chunk). Use the decode() method to convert bytes to a string. Expecting these arbitrary bytes to be valid UTF-8 text (the assumption you are making by trying to decode it to a string from UTF-8) is pretty optimistic. csv text/plain; charset=us-ascii This is a third-party file, and I get a new one every day, so I would rather not chang Simplest of all Solutions: import pandas as pd df = pd. read(size). dumps() produces a bytes object. Related Articles: Python | Convert String to bytes; Python Array ; Read a file line by line in Python Aug 29, 2016 · I would create a python script that decode a Base64 string to an array of byte (or array of Hex values). decode('unicode_escape') If you start with a str object instead (equivalent to the python 2. Warning, it is only a proof of concept. By specifying ‘utf-8’ as the decoding scheme, the bytes are properly converted into a UTF-8 encoded string. But if you need to be doing checks on your input arguments and coercing to different types, then you're no longer duck typing -- You're just making your code more difficult to read an maintain. 7 program that writes out data from various external applications. The most straightforward method to convert bytes to a UTF-8 string in Python is to use the decode() method available on byte objects. decode(encoding) If you want to encode a string (turn it into a byte array) call: the_string. Python 3 string decode. '. Sep 25, 2018 · I've got about 1000 filenames read by os. That is Python's standard library, even in the latest version, does not include anything that can decode X. It works just like the encode() variable: attach the variable to be converted using dot notation and specify the encoding type as the method's parameter. Dec 19, 2023 · Splits a given bytes object into a list of substrings based on a given delimiter. decode(encoding='utf-8', errors='strict') The bytes. b64encode(value). readline(). x) object. The b'' prefix tells you this is a sequence of 8-bit bytes, and bytes object has no Unicode characters, so the \u code has no Nov 27, 2020 · Bytestrings in Python 3 are officially called bytes, an immutable sequence of integers in the range 0 <= x < 256. Let Python do the work from #1 for you implicitly. The bytes. Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1) decodes bytes directly, one on one, to Unicode code points; even for those fields that should be treated as opaque data can be decoded this way, even though that is probably the wrong codec for those headers. decode() in python3. The default encoding is UTF-8, so if you . The byteorder argument determines the byte order used to represent the integer. Ok, so now I have to decode this binary data of type bytes… Now in Python 3, however, this doesn't work (I assume because of the bytes/string vs. def encrypt1(var, key): return bytes(a ^ b for a, b in zip(var, key)) The second one uses int. Example: >>> string='\x9f' >>> array=bytearray(string) >>> array bytearray(b'\x9f') >>> array. setdefaultencoding function) to unicode, then encode to a character set that can display the characters you wish, in this case I'd recommend UTF-8. Mar 3, 2010 · UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0x8b in position 1: unexpected code byte In order to decode a gzpipped response you need to add the following modules (in Python 3): import gzip import io Apr 9, 2025 · buf - It is the image data received in bytes; flags - It specifies the way in which image should be read. By decoding the bytes to a UTF-8 encoded string (decoded_data), we use json. 12 on Windows 10. Please turn off your ad blocker. x is, however it is slightly less confused on the topic. Jan 23, 2018 · Use a regular expression to extract the keys and values: import re results = [ dict(re. Specify correct encoding to avoid errors. Finally, we print the decoded string using the print function. E. You have 4 bytes with hex values C3, A7, C3 and B5, that do not map to printable ASCII characters so Python uses the \xhh notation instead. Let's I add issue with some columns being either full of str or mixed of str and bytes in a dataframe. The program sends a byte of numbers to the machine and receive number of bytes as reply. Dec 7, 2022 · Step 2: Call the bytes. in python 2. Jul 7, 2014 · I have to read a text file into Python. join(bytelist). Python3 May 3, 2018 · Under the hood, there is just a bunch of bytes. It is used to represent an integer between 0 and 255, and we can denote it as ‘b’ or ‘B. decode(os_encoding) – May 25, 2013 · Stack Overflow for Teams Where developers & technologists share private knowledge with coworkers; Advertising & Talent Reach devs & technologists worldwide about your product, service or employer brand Feb 4, 2021 · First find the encoding of the string and then decode it to do this you will need to make a byte string by adding the letter 'b' to the front of the original string. Feb 7, 2025 · How to Convert Bytes to String in Python. Jul 21, 2022 · Comparison of two python3 solutions. It allows specifying the byte order (either 'big Dec 21, 2024 · Together – encode() and decode() help bridge string and byte representations in Python. The embedded side of my project is a micro controller that creates a base64 string starting from raw byte. Below are some of the ways by which we can convert a bytes array into JSON format in Python: Using decode and json. To get a unicode result, decode again with UTF-8. This shows that decode() converts bytes to a Python string. Thus: AttributeError: type object 'str' has no attribute 'decode' If you want to decode a byte array and turn it into a string call: the_thing. or this: UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xb1 in position 1: invalid start byte. from_bytes()int. May 24, 2018 · Python 3. Jun 25, 2018 · But you should try to find out why your terminal is set to such a strange encoding (which Python just tries to adopt to). str2. You can get the value of a single byte by using an index like an array, but the values can not be modified. string/unicode switch. For example, if you have the byte sequence b'\x00\x01', it can be converted to the integer 1. x the b prefix will cause the enclosed string to become a type str you may have some encoded characters already hidden somewhere within. Mar 23, 2020 · int. decode('ASCII') There is one misunderstanding often made, especially by people coming from the Java world. struct supports you in getting the right byte order, which most of the time is network byte order and different from your system. Specify the encoding, usually utf-8: # Decode the bytes to string string_data = bytes_data. Use str. decode() to go from bytes to str. encode Feb 2, 2024 · Python 3 Convert Bytes to String by Using the decode Method. The bytes type in Python is immutable and stores a sequence of values ranging from 0-255 (8-bits). You need to specify the encoding that was used to encode the original Unicode string. If you actually have a list of bytes, then, to get this object, you can use ''. fromhex() bytes. The while True loop continues until the file is fully read, breaking when no more data is available (f. Here’s how you can chain the two methods in a single line of Python code: Apr 24, 2015 · pack() work's the other way around and stores data in a byte string. Finally, decode the bytes into a string using the decode() method. In v2 this returns the integer converted to a (byte)string because bytes is an alias for str, while in v3 it returns a bytestring containing the given number of null characters. You can also use bytes(s, encoding=) and str(b, encoding=), respectively. No reason to mess with JSON unless you are specifically using non-Python dict syntax in your string. decode() function is used to decode character string in the Series/Index using indicated encoding. Using bytes. Take a look at the examples on the python doc and play around with it a bit to get a feel for it (when a tuple is returned/needed, e. However, the add-on cryptography package does support this. May 3, 2018 · Under the hood, there is just a bunch of bytes. decode() in python2 and bytes. Jan 23, 2025 · In Python, dictionary keys and values are often stored as byte strings when working with binary data or certain encoding formats, we may need to convert the byte strings into regular strings. There is a strip-function in the string module in Python 2: from string import strip Feb 27, 2024 · How to convert hex to byte in Python using codecs. For example, b'hello'. unpack('H'*buf_size, raw_buf) Share Dec 8, 2014 · This does assume that all headers fit in those 2048 bytes. encode / bytes. The byteorder argument determines the byte order used to represent the integer, and defaults to "big". e. And the asnwer is that you do that the same way as you string a text-string: somestring. May 12, 2018 · You'll have to use unicode_escape instead: >>> b"\\123omething special". There are other escape sequences that would trigger the same issue in Python 2 bytestrings, such as \Users\xander, where the \x is the start of a hex escape sequence. I have tried the following: import codecs f = codecs. You will learn 6 different ways to handle these errors, ranging from strictly requiring all data to be valid Just a cautionary note from Python in a Nutshell about bytes: Avoid using the bytes type as a function with an integer argument. Nothing fancier than that. If buf given is not image data then NULL will be returned. Jan 30, 2025 · Learn how to convert bytes to strings in Python using `decode()`, `str()`, and `codecs`. However, the manual approach is not recommended. If byteorder is "big", the most significant byte is at the beginning of the Python's standard library, even in the latest version, does not include anything that can decode X. decode ('utf-8') print (string_data) Output: Hello, World! Handling Different Encodings. read() but I get the following error: UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf16' codec can't decode bytes in position 18-19: illegal UTF-16 surrogate Feb 23, 2024 · The decode() method in Python converts a bytes object into a string. Sep 21, 2018 · Sadly there is no documentation so I can't find anything how to decode this. Here's an Jun 12, 2020 · I am struggling to successfully decode a JPEG image from bytes, back to JPEG again. literal_eval. from_bytes and int. Decode UTF-8 encoded bytes to str: bs. Another bytes-like object added in 2. read_csv(filepath, names=fields) UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xda in position 6: invalid continuation byte Feb 3, 2016 · Personally, I love python's duck typing as much as the next guy. pack) and then back to C double (Python extracts the 4-bytes as a C float and then converts the result back to a C double/Python float). The decode() is a method provided by the codecs module in Python, which is used to decode data from one format to another. Here we will use 'UTF-16' or 'utf-16' encoding to decode the 0xff byte array into string or ASCII character. read_csv('file_name. However when the file is read I get this error: UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xe9 in byte position 7997: invalid continuation byte When I open the file in my text editor (Notepad++) and go to position 7997 I don’t see Oct 23, 2015 · Explicitly decode the str you read using the correct codec (to get a unicode object), then encode that back to utf-8. It supports the following encodings: In other words, the \xhh escape sequences represent individual bytes, and the hh is the hex value of that byte. That is To convert Base64 to PDF file in Python you need the base64. This step-by-step guide includes examples for easy understanding. This method decodes the bytes using a specified encoding. import struct buff_size = 512 # 'H' is for unsigned 16 bit integer, try 'h' also sample_buff = struct. It a May 24, 2016 · As per String literals:. IMREAD_COLOR; Return Type: If the input byte data is a valid image, the function returns a NumPy ndarray, representing the image in the specified color mode. If your binary data is already UTF-8 encoded, you can simply decode it to a text string: May 28, 2019 · As the str and bytes types cannot be mixed, you must always explicitly convert between them. startswith() Checks if a bytes object starts with a specific byte or not. x. Most times we need to decode bytes from our operating system, such as console output, the most pythonic way I found to do it is to import locale and then os_encoding = locale. Here is some example code that demonstrates how to use the decode() method to convert a byte string to a string: Apr 24, 2025 · Reading from a file in Python means accessing and retrieving the contents of a file, whether it be text, binary data or a specific data format like CSV or JSON. S. decode() method; Using map() without using the b prefix; Using pandas to convert bytes to strings; Let's explore them one by one: Using . Mar 1, 2024 · Decoding Bytes to Strings and Parsing JSON. decode() function. I want to decode all of them to Unicode for further processing in my script. Python float is really C double. data', 'r', 'utf-16-be') contents = f. x, to convert a bytes string into a Unicode text str string, you have to know what character set the string is encoded with, so you can call decode. Maybe your operating system is configured wrong somehow. Here’s an example: Feb 1, 2021 · Try the following code. x). loads() with bytearray; Bytes To JSON in Python Using json. decode(encoding, errors='strict') Parameter : encoding : str errors : str, optional Returns : decoded Series/Index of objects Aug 14, 2024 · Converting a hexadecimal string to bytes in Python involves interpreting each pair of hexadecimal characters as a byte. x) or bytes (Python 3. Feb 9, 2025 · Step 3: Decode the Bytes to String. Apr 9, 2025 · Understanding how to decode bytes correctly ensures that the data is in a usable and meaningful form, such as a string of text. encode function encodes the string value to the bytes type. Convert Binary Data to UTF-8 String. decode and io Module May 3, 2025 · The code reads the file in chunks of 1024 bytes using f. Method 1: Decode with UTF-8. Feb 23, 2024 · Method 1: Using the Bytes’ decode() Method. For documentation see bytes. txtHello World Hello GeeksforGe Jan 4, 2017 · There are several builtin error-handling schemes for encoding and decoding str to and from bytes and bytearray with e. Python3 Feb 2, 2024 · Convert bytearray to string With the bytes() Function in Python. Let’s explore a few techniques to convert a hex string to bytes. Example File: geeks. Return to Blog Handling encoding and decoding errors in Python By John Lekberg on April 03, 2020. those without u prefix like u'\xc4pple'), one must decode from the native encoding (iso8859-1/latin1, unless modified with the enigmatic sys. For example, if it's UTF-8: stringdata = data. decode(errors="ignore") to the string Apr 18, 2021 · Difference between byte and string data type in Python String data type. decode('string_escape') Capitán The result is a str that is encoded in UTF-8 where the accented character is represented by the two bytes that were written \\xc3\\xa1 in the original string. We specify the encoding parameter as 'utf-8', which instructs Python to decode the bytes using the UTF-8 encoding standard. UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xa8 in position 14: invalid start byte Without encoding ='utf8' 'charmap' codec can't decode byte 0x9d in position 622: character maps to <undefined> P. join(bytelist) or b''. You can continue your Python learning with the following tutorials and courses: Jan 27, 2024 · Now let’s go through different techniques to convert binary data to UTF-8 encoded text in Python. Dec 26, 2014 · I don't know how to convert Python's bitarray to string if it contains non-ASCII bytes. com. EDIT: In my tests unsetting the env variable LANG produced this strange setting for the stdout encoding for me: Mar 9, 2018 · All you need is ast. decode() Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0x9f in position 0: ordinal not in range(128) Dec 22, 2015 · Also you should use the python struct module to decode the buffer. This can be interconverted using the decode and loads function which returns the string from bytes and converts that to the dictionary again. decode('utf-8') to get the final result: Python unable to decode byte string. May 12, 2025 · Converting a hexadecimal string to bytes in Python involves interpreting each pair of hexadecimal characters as a byte. open and open are the same function), which gets you an open that works like Python 3's open. Using int. b'abc < ABC\x04&'. In most cases, it is OK if you leave the encoding method as default, utf-8, but it is not always safe because the bytes could be encoded with other encoding methods rather than utf-8. Mar 3, 2009 · We can decode the bytes object to produce a string using bytes. Aug 21, 2015 · I am a beginner to Python. encode UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x80 in position 0: invalid start byte The errors argument specifies the response when the input string can’t be converted according to the encoding’s rules. open (Python 2. encode() to go from str to bytes, and bytes. '') or double quotes (i. decode() a byte string without giving an encoding, Python 3 uses UTF-8 encoding. I started from encoded frame from a MJPG bytes stream, which I want to decode in order to manipulate with OpenCV. fro May 12, 2025 · Converting a hexadecimal string to bytes in Python involves interpreting each pair of hexadecimal characters as a byte. g. When the text contains also characters written as non-escape sequences, the replacement must be done the more complicated way (I will show later when wanted). def bytes_to_base64_string(value: bytes) -> str: import base64 return base64. May 8, 2023 · Method : Using encode() + dumps() + decode() + loads() The encode and dumps function together performs the task of converting the dictionary to string and then to corresponding byte value. Python 3 example: Apr 14, 2025 · This article covers different ways to convert bytes into strings in Python such as: Using decode() method; Using str() function; Using codecs. Jan 29, 2024 · The str. I have a program to find a string in a 12MB file . It’s default value is cv2. b64decode function and any function to write binary data into local files. When Should You Use Each Method? Given multiple options available, here are some best practices based on real-world usage over 15+ years: decode() – For all incoming bytes from external sources like files, networks, sockets etc. I continually get bitten by exceptions when I write to a file until I add . getpreferredencoding(). If we have a bytearray containing string characters with the utf-8 encoding and want to convert that array into a string variable, we can use the built-in bytes() function in Python. Using int. Feb 12, 2024 · Next, we use the decode method to convert this byte data into a human-readable string. You decode a UTF-8 byte sequence into a Unicode string, and you encode a Unicode string into a UTF-8 byte sequence. In Python 2, the str type was used for two different kinds of values – text and bytes, whereas in Python 3, these are separate and incompatible types. decode function decodes the bytes type to the string type. Sometimes, the bytes might be encoded in a different format. There are many other answers on this question, but I want to point out that (at least in Python 3. why do you believe you need to perform any encoding/decoding? – Feb 2, 2024 · It is important to mention that sometimes a string may not be completely decoded using one codec. loads() method and decode() method to convert bytes to JSON objects. 7+ only; on Python 3+, io. b64encode(b'data to be encoded') # b'ZGF0YSB0byBiZSBlbmNvZGVk' (notice the "b") data['bytes'] = encoded. 4. bytes. doduhzkbmazgiqxciqlrzolngsyhwtmwwpzhkhijziazsrks