write() argument must be str, not bytes python

Question

I am new to python. I got this pre written code that downloads data in to report. But I am getting the error

"write() argument must be str, not bytes".

See below code

def _download_report(service, response, ostream):

    logger.info('Downloading keyword report')
    written_header = False
    for fragment in range(len(response.files)):
      file_request = service.reports().getFile(
        reportId=response.id_, reportFragment=fragment)
      istream = io.BytesIO(file_request.execute())

    if written_header:
      istream.readline()
    else:
      written_header = True
    ostream.write(istream.read())

sgDysregulation · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-28 14:12:02Z

1

you'll need to change the last line to

ostream.write(istream.read().decode('utf-8'))

PS. you may need to replace `'utf-8`` with whatever encoding the data is in

answered Sep 28, 2018 at 14:12

sgDysregulation

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Green Cloak Guy · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-28 14:16:48Z

To elaborate more on @sgDysregulation's answer:

One peculiarity with python 3 is that strings ('hello, world') and binary strings (b'hello, world') are basically incompatible. As an example, if you're familiar with basic file I/O, there are two types of modes to read a file in - you could use open('file.txt', 'r'), which returns unicode strings when you read from the file, or open('file,txt', 'rb'), which returns binary strings. The same applies for writing - you can't write strings correctly in mode 'wb', and can't write binary strings in mode 'w'.

In this case, your istream returns binary strings when read from, whereas your ostream expects to write a unicode string. The solution is to change encoding from one to the other, and do what sgDysregulation recommends:

ostream.write(istream.read().decode('utf-8'))

this assumes that the binary string is encoded in utf-8 format, which it probably is. You might have to use a different format otherwise.

Kinyanjui Karanja · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-28 14:17:53Z

0

You have to decode the BytesIO object to get a string that can be written to the file:

ostream.write(istream.read().decode('utf-8'))

answered Sep 28, 2018 at 14:17

Kinyanjui Karanja

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