Python bytes() Function
The Python bytes() function returns a new "bytes" object, which is an immutable sequence of integers in the range 0 <= x < 256. When this function is called without any arguments, it creates a bytes object of size zero. It is one of the built-in functions and does not require any module.
The bytes object can be initialized in the following ways β
String β We can create a bytes object from a string by encoding it using str.encode().
Integer β If the source is an integer, an array with null value of specified size will be created.
Iterable β Creates an array of size equal to the length of iterable.
No source β If no source is specified, an array of size 0 is created.
Syntax
The syntax of the Python bytes() function is as follows β
bytes(source) or, bytes(source, encoding) or, bytes(source, encoding, errors)
Parameters
The Python bytes() function accepts three optional parameters β
source β It represents an object such as a list, string, or tuple.
encoding β It indicates the encoding of the passed string.
errors β It specifies the required action when encoding fails.
Return Value
The Python bytes() function returns a new bytes object of the specified size.
bytes() Function Examples
Practice the following examples to understand the use of bytes() function in Python:
Example: Use of bytes() Function
The following example shows how to use the Python bytes() function. Here we are creating an empty bytes object.
empByte_obj = bytes()
print("It is an example of empty byte object:", empByte_obj)
When we run above program, it produces following result β
It is an example of empty byte object: b''
Example: Convert String to bytes Object Using bytes()
In the code below, we are converting a given string into bytes object. For this operation, we use bytes() function by passing string and encoding as parameter values.
strObj = "Tutorials Point bytes object"
str_bytes_obj = bytes(strObj, 'utf-8')
print("Creating bytes object from string:")
print(str_bytes_obj)
Following is an output of the above code β
Creating bytes object from string: b'Tutorials Point bytes object'
Example: Create bytes Object Using bytes()
The code below demonstrates how to create a bytes object of the specified size. We are going to pass the size and value as arguments to the bytes() function.
size = 5
value = 1
new_bytesObj = bytes([value]*size)
print("Bytes object of the given size:")
print(new_bytesObj)
Output of the above code is as follows β
Bytes object of the given size: b'\x01\x01\x01\x01\x01'
Example: Convert bytesarray to bytes Object Using bytes()
The following code illustrates how to convert a bytearray into bytes object using the bytes() function. To do so, we simply need to pass the bytearray as a parameter value to the bytes() function.
byteArray = bytearray([84, 85, 84, 79, 82, 73, 65, 76, 83])
bytesObj = bytes(byteArray)
print("The bytes object from byte array:")
print(bytesObj)
Following is an output of the above code β
The bytes object from byte array: b'TUTORIALS'