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Ah, came up with a relatively simple solution based on an internal helper function with an optional output flag:
>>> import codecs
>>> codecs.encode(b"hello", "bz2_codec").decode("bz2_codec")
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: 'bz2_codec' decoder returned 'bytes' instead of 'str'; use codecs.decode to decode to arbitrary types
>>> "hello".encode("bz2_codec")
TypeError: 'str' does not support the buffer interface
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: invalid input type for 'bz2_codec' codec (TypeError: 'str' does not support the buffer interface)
>>> "hello".encode("rot_13")
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: 'rot_13' encoder returned 'str' instead of 'bytes'; use codecs.encode to encode to arbitrary types