Adding the prefix "b" to a string converts it to bytes:
b'example'
But I can't figure out how to do this with a variable. Assuming string = 'example', none of these seem to work:
b(string)
b string
b'' + string
Is there a simple way to do this?
# only an example, you can choose a different encoding
bytes('example', encoding='utf-8')
In Python3:
Bytes literals are always prefixed with 'b' or 'B'; they produce an instance of the bytes type instead of the str type. They may only contain ASCII characters; bytes with a numeric value of 128 or greater must be expressed with escapes.
In Python2:
A prefix of 'b' or 'B' is ignored in Python 2; it indicates that the literal should become a bytes literal in Python 3.
More about bytes():
bytes([source[, encoding[, errors]]])
Return a new “bytes” object, which is an immutable sequence of integers in the range 0 <= x < 256. bytes is an immutable version of bytearray – it has the same non-mutating methods and the same indexing and slicing behavior.
Accordingly, constructor arguments are interpreted as for bytearray().
Bytes objects can also be created with literals, see String and Bytes literals.