How To Use Python bytes() Function With Examples

In this article, I will tell you what are bytes in python, what is the syntax of bytes() function in python. It will also tell you how to use the python bytes() function to encoding or decoding data, reading and writing binary files, or working with network protocols that use binary data with examples.

1. What Are Bytes In Python?

1. In Python, bytes is a built-in data type that represents a sequence of immutable bytes.
2. It is used to store binary data, such as images, audio, or network packets.
3. Bytes are similar to strings, but instead of representing characters, they represent raw binary data.
4. A bytes object contains a sequence of integers, each of which represents a byte of data.
5. The range of possible values for each byte is 0 to 255 (or 0x00 to 0xFF in hexadecimal notation).
6. Bytes can be created using the bytes() constructor or by using a byte string literal with a b prefix.
7. For example, here is how to create a bytes object using the bytes() constructor:

   >>> bytes_obj = bytes([65, 66, 67])
   >>> print(bytes_obj)
   b'ABC'
   

8. And here is how to create a bytes object using a byte string literal:

   >>> byte_str = b'Hello, world!'
   >>> print(byte_str)
   b'Hello, world!'

9. Note that bytes objects are immutable, which means you cannot modify them once they are created. However, you can create a mutable version of a bytes object using the bytearray() constructor ( How To Create, Modify, Append ByteArray Object In Python ).

2. The Python bytes() Function Syntax.

1. The bytes() function in Python is a built-in function that returns an immutable bytes object.
2. The general syntax for the bytes() function is:

   bytes([source[, encoding[, errors]]])

3. source (optional): an object that can be converted to a sequence of integers (e.g., a list, tuple, or bytes-like object).
4. encoding (optional): the encoding to use when converting a string to bytes. Default is 'utf-8'.
5. errors (optional): the error handling scheme to use for encoding errors. Default is 'strict'.
6. If source is not provided, an empty bytes object is returned.
7. Here are some examples of using the bytes() function:

   # Creating a bytes object from a list of integers
   bytes_obj = bytes([65, 66, 67])
   print(bytes_obj)  # b'ABC'
   
   # Creating a bytes object from a string
   str_obj = "hello"
   bytes_obj = bytes(str_obj, "utf-8")
   print(bytes_obj)  # b'hello'
   
   # Creating an empty bytes object
   empty_bytes = bytes()
   print(empty_bytes)  # b''
   
   
   
   # Create a bytearray object
   bytearray_obj = bytearray([65, 66, 67])
   # Create a bytes object from the bytearray
   bytes_obj = bytes(bytearray_obj)
   print(bytes_obj) # b'ABC'
   
   
   # Create a bytes object from a hex string
   byte_hex = bytes.fromhex("48656c6c6f")
   print(byte_hex) # b'Hello'
   

3. How To Declare Bytes In Python.

1. To declare bytes in Python, you can use the bytes() constructor or a byte string literal with a b prefix.
2. Using bytes() constructor:

   # Create a bytes object from a list of integers
   bytes_obj = bytes([65, 66, 67])
   
   # Create a bytes object from a string
   str_obj = "hello"
   bytes_obj = bytes(str_obj, "utf-8")

3. Using a byte string literal:

   # Create a byte string from a string
   byte_str = b"hello"
   
   # Create a byte string from a hex string
   byte_hex = bytes.fromhex("48656c6c6f")

4. Use Python bytes() Function To Encoding Decoding Data Example.

4.1 Encoding Data using Python bytes() Function.

1. To encode a string or any other data into bytes using the bytes() function in Python, we can simply pass the data as an argument to the bytes() function.
2. Here is an example of encoding a string “hello world” into bytes:

   >>> string_data = "hello world"
   >>> bytes_data = bytes(string_data, encoding='utf-8')
   >>> print(bytes_data)
   b'hello world'

3. In the above example, we have passed the string “hello world” to the bytes() function with the encoding parameter as ‘utf-8’. The bytes() function then returns the encoded bytes object, which we have assigned to the variable bytes_data. Finally, we have printed the value of bytes_data, which is b'hello world'.

4.2 Decoding Data using Python bytes() Function.

1. To decode the bytes data into a string or any other format in Python, we can use the bytes object’s decode() function passing the encoding parameter.
2. Here is an example of decoding the bytes data “hello world” into a string:

   >>> bytes_data = b'hello world'
   >>> string_data = bytes_data.decode('utf-8')
   >>> print(string_data)
   hello world
   

3. In the above example, we call the bytes object’s decode(‘utf-8’) function to convert the bytes string to plain string.