How do I convert a binary bytes into string in python 3?

Question

I have a socket receives some binary data sent by the server, the server is written in C++. it sends binary data like: 0x10, 0x20, 0x18, 0xAA etc.

In python 2 I used to be able to receive the data and append it to a string, but now in Python 3 what I received is a byte array, how do I convert that into a string?

decode('utf-8') doesn't seem to work, Here is my original code:

reply_string = "" while bytes_read < reply_length:
    chunk = s.recv(4096)
    reply_string += chunk.decode('utf-8')

s is a socket, the error I got is:

UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xf7 in position 116: invalid start byte

The server is written in C++, it doesn't send unicode, it simply read the content of a binary file and send it back to the client, above is the client code.

Why do you want a string? A bytearray seems semantically appropriate. The data you're receiving isn't text. — user2357112
– user2357112, Commented Jan 17, 2019 at 20:18
The Python 2 str type and the Python 3 bytes type behave very similarly. If your code worked in Python 2.7, I would expect it to continue working in 3.X, no type conversion required. Can you provide a minimal reproducible example that demonstrates the problem? — Kevin
– Kevin, Commented Jan 17, 2019 at 20:26

CodeAlkemist · Accepted Answer · 2019-01-17 20:25:54Z

0

Ok so assuming the string is in UTF-8 it is as simple as:

try:
    binary_data.decode('utf-8', errors='strict')
except UnicodeError as e:
    # Handle the error here

This code should catch any errors that arise and you can handle them from there.

answered Jan 17, 2019 at 20:25

CodeAlkemist

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Hchap · Accepted Answer · 2022-08-23 08:56:21Z

0

Is there any chance that it might not be using UTF-8? I personally have used socket by just doing incoming_data = s.recv().decode().

I'm confused what you are trying to do with the data - if you just want 0x10, then try doing incoming_data = str(s.recv()).

answered Aug 23, 2022 at 8:56

Hchap

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