Remove 'b' character do in front of a string literal in Python 3

Question

I am new in python programming and i am a bit confused. I try to get the bytes from a string to hash and encrypt but i got

b'...'

b character in front of string just like the below example. Is any way avoid this?.Can anyone give a solution? Sorry for this silly question

import hashlib

text = "my secret data"
pw_bytes = text.encode('utf-8')
print('print',pw_bytes)
m = hashlib.md5()
m.update(pw_bytes)

OUTPUT:

 print b'my secret data'

http://stackoverflow.com/a/43680634/1236128 – Jonathan Komar Apr 28 '17 at 12:51 — Jonathan Komar, Apr 28 '17 at 12:51

score 270 · Answer 1 · answered May 04 '16 at 01:33

270

This should do the trick:

pw_bytes.decode("utf-8")

answered May 04 '16 at 01:33

krock

It's not working in my case. I'm using python3. – Birat Bose Mar 19 '19 at 10:31
Thanks, It worked with python 3.7. @BiratBose: I think it should work, can you provide the code and result ? – Chau Pham May 22 '19 at 06:27
@BiratBose, I am using python 3.7 and decoding worked for me. – Yash Tamakuwala Jul 26 '19 at 10:30
Works with python 3.7.3. Thanks – Richar Fernandez Vilchez Aug 06 '19 at 02:25
3

`pw_bytes = pw_bytes.decode("utf-8")` should work – heisthere Dec 20 '19 at 14:04
1

Excellent idea. it really works. Thank you very much – Sara Mar 30 '21 at 12:43
works in 2022 python3.9 – chris_cx May 09 '22 at 22:42

score 36 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 17 '17 at 16:57

36

Here u Go

f = open('test.txt','rb+')
ch=f.read(1)
ch=str(ch,'utf-8')
print(ch)

answered Feb 17 '17 at 16:57

Muhammad Younus

11

You introduced a filesystem object into the mix? Why? – barrypicker Feb 20 '19 at 21:10
Didn't get it, please can you elaborate more? – Muhammad Younus Feb 21 '19 at 04:13
2

I've used this in Python 3.7.3 to remove the `b' '` enclosing the value returned by `subprocess.check_output()` and it works. – Joey May 31 '19 at 10:23

score 21 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 16 '18 at 18:26

21

Decoding is redundant

You only had this "error" in the first place, because of a misunderstanding of what's happening.

You get the b because you encoded to utf-8 and now it's a bytes object.

 >> type("text".encode("utf-8"))
 >> <class 'bytes'>

Fixes:

edited Jul 16 '18 at 18:26

Robert Harvey

answered May 04 '16 at 01:31

Pythonista

38

why is this the accepted answer? It's the one below that is. This one is too much talk...The answer below by krock is the answer. And by the way, str(x) does not remove the b – daparic Mar 09 '18 at 14:53
3

First answers with no explanation or as you put it "talk" are useless. Code only answers are frowned upon here. Second, I didn't say str(x) removed the b. – Pythonista Mar 09 '18 at 15:30
11

This does not answer the question. – ThaJay Oct 15 '19 at 13:26
2

*this not an answer !* – dsgdfg Jul 14 '20 at 11:32
@dsgdfg Just because you didnt understand it doesnt mean its not an answer. It just means you come to stackoverflow looking for copy paste code without acually knowing what youre doing or attempting to understand even a modicum of the code you write. How much simpler are you looking for than a 50 character 2 bullet point itemization of how you screwed up? – Pythonista Jul 14 '20 at 18:00

3 Answers3