[Solved] Getting python's default 'printed' byte-string as string ?

[MvGulik]

Answer: str() or repr()
--- --- --- --- ---
So if one uses

print('bytestr:test-0', bytestr)

on some byte string.
You get this

Output:
bytestr:test-0 b'\x81\xff\xffscale\x00\x0f\x00\x00\x80@\x00\x89PNG...

as output.

There are of course plenty of decoding options.
But ... what I like to get is 'exactly' that "\x81\x..." printed string in string form. (For direct further processing. Mainly debug related.)
Is that possible?

(Figure I could use some tmp file ... well maybe, not tried that yet. Copying it from the I/O terminal is not really workable of course.)

[deanhystad]

bytestr.hex()?

[MvGulik]

No, not looking for some hex notation. I got that covered.
Truly looking for an 'exact' match (or as close as possible) of what I get in the I/O console.

Tried

bytestr.decode("ascii", errors="backslashreplace")

. But that will eat the "\x00" bytes.

Only thing that currently comes to mind is potentially processing the byte string per byte. And using

.decode("ascii")

(maybe) error checking to flip the notation depending on what I want as output.

[deanhystad]

Are you trying to get what print(bytestr) displays as a str? Have you tried str(bytestr)? Does that give you what you want? If not, have you tried repr(bytestr)?

It would help to know what you are trying to do. If you want a str object that matches what you get from print(bytestr), str() or repr() will work fine. If you want to save bytes to a file and restore to a bytes object from the file, use a binary file.

[MvGulik]

Darn. Totally forgot about

repr()

... which did the job.
Solved.

[deanhystad]

repr(bytestr) and str(bytestr) return the same value. bytes.__str__(x) probably returns bytes.__repr__(x) or vice-versa.

the_bytes = bytes(range(256))  # Make bytes with every possible value.
str_bytes = str(the_bytes)
repr_bytes = repr(the_bytes)
print(str_bytes == repr_bytes)

Output:
True

When you print(bytestr), print calls bytestr.__str__(), not bytestr.__repr__(). __repr__() is used when you call repr(), or is used by the __str__() method for some classes such as List or Tuple.

x = "Hello, World!"
y = [x]

print(x, y)

Output:
Hello, World! ['Hello, World!']

Notice that quotes are added when printing x as part of y. __repr__() adds the quotes, __str__() does not.

[MvGulik]

Aha. I see. Thanks.

I think I did tried "str(...)" at some point ... but only one time with some bad".decode()" code in it. And kinda gave up on "str()" from there.

nts: remember to never try to test two different things at the same time.

[Pedroski55]

No, not looking for some hex notation. I got that covered.
Truly looking for an 'exact' match (or as close as possible) of what I get in the I/O console.

Tried

1 bytestr.decode("ascii", errors="backslashreplace")

But that will eat the "\x00" bytes.

Fussy about your food? Don't want to eat the null bytes? Use repr()!

x = bytes("é", encoding="utf8") # x = b'\xc3\xa9'
string = 'déjà vu'
string_bytes_ascii = string.encode("ascii", "backslashreplace") # b'd\\xe9j\\xe0 vu'
string_bytes_utf8 = string.encode("utf8", "backslashreplace") # b'd\xc3\xa9j\xc3\xa0 vu'
bd = list(string_bytes_utf8) # [100, 195, 169, 106, 195, 160, 32, 118, 117]
# add null bytes to the list above
binary_data = bytes([00, 100, 195, 169, 106, 195, 160, 32, 118, 117, 00])
binary_data.decode(encoding="utf-8") # 'déjà vu'
z = binary_data.decode(encoding="utf-8", errors="backslashreplace")
print(z) # nothing # \x00 represents end of string? Or end of file?
# wanna see the null bytes?
repr(z) # "'\\x00déjà vu\\x00'"

[Dustbunny]

Use decoding:

b = b'hello'
s = b.decode('utf-8')

buran write Apr-06-2026, 11:12 AM:
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