Python reading file in binary, binary data to string?

Question

I'm trying to learn Python and currently doing some exercises online. One of them involves reading zip files.

When I do:

import zipfile
zp=zipfile.ZipFile('MyZip.zip')
print(zp.read('MyText.txt'))

it prints:

b'Hello World'

I just want a string with "Hello World". I know it's stupid, but the only way I could think of was to do:

import re
re.match("b'(.*)'",zp.read('MyText.txt'))

How am I supposed to do it?

I'm dumbfounded that this didn't get flagged as a possible duplicate and closed in seconds. — mowwwalker
– mowwwalker, Commented Oct 2, 2011 at 22:11
Given that I sometimes feel that Python is growing too complex, and has grown too many conflicting ways of doing the exact same thing over the years, I am terribly pleased that we three produced textually the exact same answer to this question independently of each other. :) — Brandon Rhodes
– Brandon Rhodes, Commented Oct 2, 2011 at 22:20

Brandon Rhodes · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-02 22:05:58Z

7

You need to decode the raw bytes in the string into real characters. Try running .decode('utf-8') on the value you are getting back from zp.read() before printing it.

answered Oct 2, 2011 at 22:05

Brandon Rhodes

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1 Comment

mowwwalker Over a year ago

Thanks. It seems all three of you just about tied for the answer, but you got it first.

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-02 22:06:09Z

6

You need to decode the bytes to text first.

print(zp.read('MyText.txt').decode('utf-8'))

answered Oct 2, 2011 at 22:06

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

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Comments

phihag · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-02 22:06:14Z

6

Just decode the bytes:

print(zp.read('MyText.txt').decode('UTF-8'))

answered Oct 2, 2011 at 22:06

phihag

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