str.encode()

str.encode(encoding='utf-8', errors='strict')

Returns: bytes · Updated March 13, 2026 · String Methods

strings encoding bytes unicode

The encode() method converts a string to bytes using a specified character encoding. This is essential when working with file I/O, network communication, or any context requiring byte data instead of Unicode text.

Syntax

str.encode(encoding='utf-8', errors='strict')

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`encoding`	`str`	`'utf-8'`	The encoding to use (e.g., ‘utf-8’, ‘latin-1’, ‘ascii’, ‘cp1252’)
`errors`	`str`	`'strict'`	How to handle encoding errors (‘strict’, ‘ignore’, ‘replace’, ‘backslashreplace’, ‘xmlcharrefreplace’)

Examples

Basic usage

text = "Hello, World!"
encoded = text.encode()
print(encoded)
# b'Hello, World!'
print(type(encoded))
# <class 'bytes'>

Specifying a different encoding

text = "café"
# UTF-8 (default)
print(text.encode('utf-8'))
# b'caf\xc3\xa9'

# Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1)
print(text.encode('latin-1'))
# b'caf\xe9'

# ASCII with replacement
print(text.encode('ascii', errors='replace'))
# b'caf??'

Handling encoding errors

text = "Hello 🐍"

# strict (default) - raises an exception
try:
    text.encode('ascii', errors='strict')
except UnicodeEncodeError as e:
    print(f"strict: {e}")

# ignore - skip characters that can't be encoded
print(text.encode('ascii', errors='ignore'))
# b'Hello '

# replace - substitute with ?
print(text.encode('ascii', errors='replace'))
# b'Hello ?'

# backslashreplace - use \xNN notation
print(text.encode('ascii', errors='backslashreplace'))
# b'Hello \\U0001f40d'

# xmlcharrefreplace - use XML entity notation
print(text.encode('ascii', errors='xmlcharrefreplace'))
# b'Hello &#128293;'

Working with files

# Writing with specific encoding
text = "Hello, 世界!"
with open("example.txt", "w", encoding="utf-8") as f:
    f.write(text)

# Reading with specific encoding
with open("example.txt", "r", encoding="utf-8") as f:
    content = f.read()
    print(content)
# Hello, 世界!

Encoding for network requests

import json

data = {"message": "Hello 🌍"}
payload = json.dumps(data).encode('utf-8')
print(payload)
# b'{"message": "Hello \\xf0\\x9f\\x8c\\x8d"}'

# Decode back
decoded = json.loads(payload.decode('utf-8'))
print(decoded)
# {'message': 'Hello 🌍'}

Common Patterns

JSON over HTTP

import urllib.request
import json

data = {"query": "Python encode"}
json_data = json.dumps(data).encode('utf-8')

req = urllib.request.Request(
    "https://api.example.com/search",
    data=json_data,
    headers={"Content-Type": "application/json"}
)

Database storage

# Storing Unicode in a database that requires bytes
text = "日本語"
byte_data = text.encode('utf-8')
# Store byte_data in a BLOB column

Password handling

# Encoding passwords for hashing
password = "my_secure_password"
encoded_password = password.encode('utf-8')
import hashlib
hashed = hashlib.sha256(encoded_password).hexdigest()

Encoding Reference

Encoding	Use Case
`utf-8`	Default, supports all Unicode characters
`latin-1`	Western European languages
`ascii`	Basic English characters only
`cp1252`	Windows Western encoding
`shift_jis`	Japanese
`gb2312`	Simplified Chinese