<s>[INST] Convert bytes to a Python string I'm using this code to get standard output from an external program:
>>> from subprocess import *
>>> command_stdout = Popen(['ls', '-l'], stdout=PIPE).communicate()[0]

The communicate() method returns an array of bytes:
>>> command_stdout
b'total 0\n-rw-rw-r-- 1 thomas thomas 0 Mar  3 07:03 file1\n-rw-rw-r-- 1 thomas thomas 0 Mar  3 07:03 file2\n'

However, I'd like to work with the output as a normal Python string. So that I could print it like this:
>>> print(command_stdout)
-rw-rw-r-- 1 thomas thomas 0 Mar  3 07:03 file1
-rw-rw-r-- 1 thomas thomas 0 Mar  3 07:03 file2

I thought that's what the binascii.b2a_qp() method is for, but when I tried it, I got the same byte array again:
>>> binascii.b2a_qp(command_stdout)
b'total 0\n-rw-rw-r-- 1 thomas thomas 0 Mar  3 07:03 file1\n-rw-rw-r-- 1 thomas thomas 0 Mar  3 07:03 file2\n'

Does anybody know how to convert the bytes value back to string? I mean, using the "batteries" instead of doing it manually. And I'd like it to be ok with Python 3.
 [/INST] You need to decode the bytes object to produce a string:
>>> b"abcde"
b'abcde'

# utf-8 is used here because it is a very common encoding, but you
# need to use the encoding your data is actually in.
>>> b"abcde".decode("utf-8") 
'abcde'

 </s>