Python Bytes to String

Contents

Introduction
Syntax – bytes.decode()
Example 1: Bytes to String
Example 2: Hex Bytes to String
Example 3: Hex Bytes to String using utf-16
Summary

To convert Python bytes object to String, you can use bytes.decode() method.

In this tutorial, we will learn the syntax of bytes.decode() method, and how to use decode() method to convert or decode a python bytes to a string object.

Syntax – bytes.decode()

The syntax of bytes.decode() method is

bytes.decode(encoding)

Run

where encoding specifies how to decode the bytes sequence.

decode() method returns the decoded string.

Example 1: Bytes to String

In this example, we will decode bytes sequence to string using bytes.decode() method.

Python Program

bytesObj = b'52s3a6'
string = bytesObj.decode('utf-8')
print(string)

Run

Output

52s3a6

Example 2: Hex Bytes to String

In this example, we will take a bytes sequence which contains hexadecimal representation of bytes, and have them converted to string.

Python Program

bytesObj = b'\x68\x65\x6C\x6C\x6F'
string = bytesObj.decode('utf-8')
print(string)

Run

Output

hello

Example 3: Hex Bytes to String using utf-16

You can decode the bytes sequence in the required format.

In this example, we will take a bytes sequence which contains hexadecimal representation of bytes, and have them converted to string using utf-16 format.

Python Program

bytesObj = b'\x68\x00\x65\x00\x6c\x00\x6c\x00\x6f\x00'
string = bytesObj.decode('utf-16')
print(string)

Run

Output

hello

As, we are using utf-16, it takes 4 hex digits to make a utf-16 character. So, \x68\x00 is converted to a single utf-16 character h.

Summary

In this tutorial of Python Examples, we learned how to convert bytes sequence to string.