The: ''Cannot use a string pattern on a bytes-like object'' error - What should I do?

Question

I get the “cannot use a string pattern on a bytes-like object” error as the title says. How can I fix it so the error goes away? Here is my detail:

import urllib.request
 import re
 
 url = "http://www.google.com"
 regex = r'<title>(,+?)</title>'
 pattern = re.compile(regex)
 
 with urllib.request.urlopen(url) as response:
  html = response.read()
 
 title = re.findall(pattern, html)
 print(title)

When I operated it, I received the error text:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "path	o\file\Crawler.py", line 11, in <module>
  title = re.findall(pattern, html)
  File "C:\Python33\lib
e.py", line 201, in findall
  return _compile(pattern, flags).findall(string)
 TypeError: can't use a string pattern on a bytes-like object

I appreciate any help from you.

lyytutoria · Accepted Answer

The cause: You are facing up with this error because you are attempting to use a string to match with a bytes object. Moreover, python is not be informed that the bytes have been encoded. Therefore, the error happens after you run your program. Solution: To fix this error, you must change html (a bytes object) into a string by using .decode as following:

html = response.read().decode('utf-8')

A bytes regex also is not bad method for this error, so you can use it:

regex = rb'(,+?)' 
#        ^

Let's read this article to get more knowledge Change bytes to a Python String.

Ambre Bernard · Answer

Your regex is a string but html bytes.

>>> type(html)

Because python does not know the encoded bytes, it throws an error when you attempt to use string regex.

You can decode add bytes to a string.

html = html.decode('ISO-8859-1') # encoding may vary!
title = re.findall(pattern, html) # no more error

You can also use a bytes regex

regex = rb'(,+?)'
# ^

This particular context allows you to get the encoding using the response headers.

with urllib.request.urlopen(url) as response:
 encoding = response.info().get_param('charset', 'utf8')
 html = response.read().decode(encoding)

For more information, see the urlopen documentation .

Marion Tremblay · Answer

Your regex is a string but html bytes.

>>> type(html)

Because python does not know the encoded bytes, it throws an error when you attempt to use string regex.

You can decode add bytes to a string.

html = html.decode('ISO-8859-1') # encoding may vary!
title = re.findall(pattern, html) # no more error

You can also use a bytes regex

regex = rb'(,+?)'
# ^

This particular context allows you to get the encoding using the response headers.

with urllib.request.urlopen(url) as response:
 encoding = response.info().get_param('charset', 'utf8')
 html = response.read().decode(encoding)

For more information, see the urlopen documentation .

Sign Up

Sign In

Forgot Password

ITtutoria Latest Questions

The: ”Cannot use a string pattern on a bytes-like object” error – What should I do?

Quick solution to fix the error: attributeerror: __exit__.

Is It Okay To Fix the attributeerror: __enter__ problem?

Python was not found run without arguments – Simple solution when encountering the error

Quick handling of the process finished with exit code -1073741819 (0xc0000005) error

Quick solution to fix the error: attributeerror: exit.

Is It Okay To Fix the attributeerror: enter problem?