Python bytes()

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bytes() returns a new "bytes" object, which is a sequence of immutable integers in the range 0<=x<256.

A byte is an immutable (non-changable) version of bytearray with the same non-mutation methods and the same indexing and slicing behavior.

If you want to have a mutable version, you can use the bytearray() method.

Related course: Complete Python Programming Course & Exercises

bytes() syntax

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

The bytes() function can have these optional parameters:

• source (Optional) - source to initialize the array of bytes.
• encoding (Optional) - if source is a string, the encoding of the string.
• errors (Optional) - if source is a string, the action to take when the encoding conversion fails

The bytes() method returns a bytes object.

bytes() example

This way you can convert string to bytes.

string = "I like Python."

# string with encoding 'utf-8'
arr = bytes(string, 'utf-8')
print(arr)

Outputs

b`I like Python.`

When no parameters are passed, return an array of bytes with length 0

>>> b = bytes()
>>> b
b''
>>> len(b)
0

Using Python bytes()

The following example shows how to use bytes() function

# is empty
print((bytes()))

#Iterateable type
print((bytes([1,2,255])))
print(type(bytes([1,2,255])))

#string
print((bytes("Canada",'utf-8')))

#string
print((bytes("Canada",'gbk')))

# error
print((bytes([1,2,256])))

output

b''
b'\x01\x02\xff'
<class 'bytes'>
b'Canada'
  File "<stdin>", line 1
    print((bytes(1,2,256])))
                        ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
>>>

Remember, bytes() returns immutable data

>>> x = bytes('a', 'utf-8')
>>> x
b'a'
>>> x[0] = 'b'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: 'bytes' object does not support item assignment
>>>