How to convert encoded unicode string to native string in Python [duplicate]

Question

How do I convert a string that looks like the following:

s1 = u'MDcxNTFjZWU5MzQ2MTRjZmZiOWIyNTBhYjJlZDhkODY0OTEyYmE2Yjp7ImFjdHVhbF9jcmVhdGVkX3RpbWVzdGFtcCI6ICIxNjcyNDg5NjAxLjMyOTg5MyIsICJhY3R1YWxfaWQiOiAiYWhGa1pYWi1ibWxuYUhSc2IyOXdMVzVsZDNJakN4SWJibWxuYUhSc2IyOXdYMUpsYzJWeWRtRjBhVzl1UVdOMGRXRnNHTUc3QVF3In0%3D'

to a string that looks like this

s2 = u'MDcxNTFjZWU5MzQ2MTRjZmZiOWIyNTBhYjJlZDhkODY0OTEyYmE2Yjp7ImFjdHVhbF9jcmVhdGVkX3RpbWVzdGFtcCI6ICIxNjcyNDg5NjAxLjMyOTg5MyIsICJhY3R1YWxfaWQiOiAiYWhGa1pYWi1ibWxuYUhSc2IyOXdMVzVsZDNJakN4SWJibWxuYUhSc2IyOXdYMUpsYzJWeWRtRjBhVzl1UVdOMGRXRnNHTUc3QVF3In0='

Notice that s1 ends with %3D which is the unicode representation of =

I have tried using the .decode function but that doesn't seem to work.

%3D is not the unicode representation of =. That is called url escaping. — John Gordon
– John Gordon, Commented Dec 31, 2022 at 17:12

Samwise · Accepted Answer · 2022-12-31 17:12:16Z

1

This isn't about Unicode encoding (a "Unicode string" is the same thing as a "native string" in modern Python; what you're thinking of is bytes vs str), it's about URL encoding. Use urllib.parse.unquote:

>>> import urllib.parse
>>> urllib.parse.unquote('MDcxNTFjZWU5MzQ2MTRjZmZiOWIyNTBhYjJlZDhkODY0OTEyYmE2Yjp7ImFjdHVhbF9jcmVhdGVkX3RpbWVzdGFtcCI6ICIxNjcyNDg5NjAxLjMyOTg5MyIsICJhY3R1YWxfaWQiOiAiYWhGa1pYWi1ibWxuYUhSc2IyOXdMVzVsZDNJakN4SWJibWxuYUhSc2IyOXdYMUpsYzJWeWRtRjBhVzl1UVdOMGRXRnNHTUc3QVF3In0%3D')
'MDcxNTFjZWU5MzQ2MTRjZmZiOWIyNTBhYjJlZDhkODY0OTEyYmE2Yjp7ImFjdHVhbF9jcmVhdGVkX3RpbWVzdGFtcCI6ICIxNjcyNDg5NjAxLjMyOTg5MyIsICJhY3R1YWxfaWQiOiAiYWhGa1pYWi1ibWxuYUhSc2IyOXdMVzVsZDNJakN4SWJibWxuYUhSc2IyOXdYMUpsYzJWeWRtRjBhVzl1UVdOMGRXRnNHTUc3QVF3In0='

answered Dec 31, 2022 at 17:12

Samwise

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