convert byte text( type is string) to string in python

Question

I have a string like this: s = "b'1f\xe6\xb5\x8b\xe7\xbb\x98'"

How to convert it back to the original string?

I try to use eval(s), however get SyntaxError: bytes can only contain ASCII literal characters.

• Joel: Have you tried decoding s using s.decode('utf-8')?
• Amadan: If a string prints as "b'1f\xe6\xb5\x8b\xe7\xbb\x98'", you have to double the backslashes if you're trying to test it in console: eval("b'1f\\xe6\\xb5\\x8b\\xe7\\xbb\\x98'").decode('utf-8') gives a possibly useful result. The problem is that your original is just a fragment, so you get something like '1f测绘', where 1f is an orphan of cut-and-paste or something. How did you end up with that string? It would be better to take it closer to the source where it was less mangled.
• Amadan: @Gsk I'll rather upvote FHTMitchell :)
• ringsaturn: It's just a test text file encoded with Huffman Coding. I convert all text to byte to get them coded. And I want to decode it. "b'1f\xe6\xb5\x8b\xe7\xbb\x98'" is the decoded result which is the byte formatted text of original text '1f测绘'.
• Amadan: No, b'1f\xe6\xb5\x8b\xe7\xbb\x98' is. In your question, it is additionally wrapped in a string, which complicates everything unnecessarily. If you just have the bytes, you wouldn't need to evaluate the string first.

Answer 1

Don't use eval, it's dangerous. Use ast.literal_eval instead and then decode to a string like @Amadan says:

import ast
s = r"b'1f\xe6\xb5\x8b\xe7\xbb\x98'"
res = ast.literal_eval(s).decode()
print(res) # --> '1f测绘'

---

As is said in the comments, my s actually has a repr that looks like "b'1f\\xe6\\xb5\\x8b\\xe7\\xbb\\x98'". Can you please confirm what your print(repr(your_string)) and print(your_string) look like?

• ringsaturn: Thank you very much! I confirm that s = "b'1f\xe6\xb5\x8b\xe7\xbb\x98'" is what I got.