How to Fix TypeError: String Argument Without an Encoding in Python

String argument without an encoding that arises when working with string encoding in Python. This error typically occurs when attempting to convert a string to bytes without specifying the required encoding.

Let's understand with the help of an example:

a= "Hello, World!"

res = bytes(a)  
print(res)

Output

TypeError: string argument without the encoding

Explanation

• Missing Encoding: This bytes() function requires an encoding argument.
• TypeError: This raises an error due to the absence of encoding.

How to Fix this Error ?

Let's understand different solutions by which we can easily fix this error.

Using str.encode()

encode() method turns a string into a sequence of bytes, using a format like 'utf-8' that tells Python how to represent the characters in the string.

a = "Hello, World!"  # define string
res = a.encode('utf-8')  # convert `a` to byte data 
print(res)

b'Hello, World!'

Specify an Encoding

When we use the bytes() function, we need to specify the encoding format, like 'utf-8', to convert a string into bytes. This ensures the string is properly encoded into byte data.

a = "Hello, World!"

# Specify encoding
res = bytes(a , 'utf-8')  
print(res)

b'Hello, World!'

Handling Decoding

When working with the bytes we may also need to the convert bytes back to the string. This process is called decoding. To decode bytes to the string use the decode method and specify the encoding.

# byte data
b = b'Hello, World!' 

a = b.decode('utf-8')
print(a)

Hello, World!