TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str' when writing to a file in Python 3
PythonPython 3.xStringFileBytePython Problem Overview
I've very recently migrated to Python 3.5. This code was working properly in Python 2.7:
with open(fname, 'rb') as f:
lines = [x.strip() for x in f.readlines()]
for line in lines:
tmp = line.strip().lower()
if 'some-pattern' in tmp: continue
# ... code
After upgrading to 3.5, I'm getting the:
> TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str'
The error is on the last line (the pattern search code).
I've tried using the .decode()
function on either side of the statement and also tried:
if tmp.find('some-pattern') != -1: continue
- to no avail.
I was able to resolve almost all Python 2-to-Python 3 issues quickly, but this little statement was bugging me.
Python Solutions
Solution 1 - Python
You opened the file in binary mode:
with open(fname, 'rb') as f:
This means that all data read from the file is returned as bytes
objects, not str
. You cannot then use a string in a containment test:
if 'some-pattern' in tmp: continue
You'd have to use a bytes
object to test against tmp
instead:
if b'some-pattern' in tmp: continue
or open the file as a textfile instead by replacing the 'rb'
mode with 'r'
.
Solution 2 - Python
You can encode your string by using .encode()
Example:
'Hello World'.encode()
As the error describes, in order to write a string to a file you need to encode it to a byte-like object first, and encode()
is encoding it to a byte-string.
Solution 3 - Python
Like it has been already mentioned, you are reading the file in binary mode and then creating a list of bytes. In your following for loop you are comparing string to bytes and that is where the code is failing.
Decoding the bytes while adding to the list should work. The changed code should look as follows:
with open(fname, 'rb') as f:
lines = [x.decode('utf8').strip() for x in f.readlines()]
The bytes type was introduced in Python 3 and that is why your code worked in Python 2. In Python 2 there was no data type for bytes:
>>> s=bytes('hello')
>>> type(s)
<type 'str'>
Solution 4 - Python
You have to change from wb to w:
def __init__(self):
self.myCsv = csv.writer(open('Item.csv', 'wb'))
self.myCsv.writerow(['title', 'link'])
to
def __init__(self):
self.myCsv = csv.writer(open('Item.csv', 'w'))
self.myCsv.writerow(['title', 'link'])
After changing this, the error disappears, but you can't write to the file (in my case). So after all, I don't have an answer?
Source: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3191289/how-to-remove-m/3191470#3191470
Changing to 'rb' brings me the other error: io.UnsupportedOperation: write
Solution 5 - Python
For this small example, adding the only b
before
'GET http://www.py4inf.com/code/romeo.txt HTTP/1.0\n\n'
solved my problem:
import socket
mysock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
mysock.connect(('www.py4inf.com', 80))
mysock.send(b'GET http://www.py4inf.com/code/romeo.txt HTTP/1.0\n\n')
while True:
data = mysock.recv(512)
if (len(data) < 1):
break
print (data);
mysock.close()
Solution 6 - Python
Use the encode() function along with the hardcoded string value given in a single quote.
Example:
file.write(answers[i] + '\n'.encode())
Or
line.split(' +++$+++ '.encode())
Solution 7 - Python
You opened the file in binary mode:
The following code will throw a TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str'.
for line in lines:
print(type(line))# <class 'bytes'>
if 'substring' in line:
print('success')
The following code will work - you have to use the decode() function:
for line in lines:
line = line.decode()
print(type(line))# <class 'str'>
if 'substring' in line:
print('success')
Solution 8 - Python
Try opening your file as text:
with open(fname, 'rt') as f:
lines = [x.strip() for x in f.readlines()]
Additionally, here is a link for Python 3.x on the official page: io — Core tools for working with streams.
And this is the open function: open
If you are really trying to handle it as a binary then consider encoding your string.
Solution 9 - Python
I got this error when I was trying to convert a char (or string) to bytes
, the code was something like this with Python 2.7:
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
print(bytes('ò'))
This is the way of Python 2.7 when dealing with Unicode characters.
This won't work with Python 3.6, since bytes
require an extra argument for encoding, but this can be little tricky, since different encoding may output different result:
print(bytes('ò', 'iso_8859_1')) # prints: b'\xf2'
print(bytes('ò', 'utf-8')) # prints: b'\xc3\xb2'
In my case I had to use iso_8859_1
when encoding bytes in order to solve the issue.