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Best way to convert string to bytes in Python3

Python | Converting string to bytes: Here, we are going to learn about the best way to convert string to bytes in Python3.
Submitted by Sapna Deraje Radhakrishna, on January 19, 2020

To convert a string to bytes, there are more than one way,

Approach 1: use encode() method

test_str = "include_help"
print(type(test_str))

test_bytes = test_str.encode()
print(test_bytes)

print(type(test_bytes))

Output

<class 'str'>
b'include_help'
<class 'bytes'>

In python3, the first parameter to encode() defaults to 'utf-8'. This approach is also supposedly faster because the default argument results in NULL in the C code.

Approach 2: use bytes() constructor

test_str = "include_help"

test_bytes_v2 = bytes(test_str, 'utf-8')
print(type(test_bytes_v2))

print(test_bytes_v2)

Output

<class 'bytes'>
b'include_help'

Using the bytes constructor gives more options than just encoding the string. However, for encoding a string the approach1, is more pythonic than using a constructor, because it is more readable.