Are you having difficulties with the problem “TypeError: expected string or bytes-like object” in Python. Don’t worry! In this article, we will help you understand the cause of it and give you some solutions to fix this issue. Let’s start!

What is the root cause of the error “TypeError: expected string or bytes-like object” in Python? 

In the Python language, the “TypeError: expected string or bytes-like object”  is a standard error  you might face while operating with the re.sub() function in Python. The re.sub() function in Python refers to the RE (regular expressions) module, which returns a string based on a specific pattern. This error will occur if you attempt to use this function with a data type other than string.

Take a look at the example below:

# Define the list of values
m = [2, 'P', 4, 'Y', 6, 'T', 8, 'H', 'O', 'N']

After attempting to remove Each non-letter in the list with an empty string, we will get “TypeError: expected string or bytes-like object” because specific values in the list are not strings.

Code:

import re

m = [2, 'P', 4, 'Y', 6, 'T', 8, 'H', 'O', 'N']
m = re.sub('[^a-zA-Z]', '', m)
print(m)

Output:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "code.py", line 4, in <module>
m = re.sub('[^a-zA-Z]', '', m)
TypeError: expected string or bytes-like object

The best ways to solve “TypeError: expected string or bytes-like object” in Python

This error occurs due to the code including a few float values. You should transform a few values into strings to execute the code effectively. Use the str() function to change the values before passing them to the re.sub() function. Use these commands as input, and the error will be set perfectly.

Code:

import re

m = [2, 'P', 4, 'Y', 6, 'T', 8, 'H', 'O', 'N']
m = re.sub('[^a-zA-Z]', '', str(m))
print(m)

Output:

PYTHON

As you can see, we don’t get an error because we first converted the list to a string object with str(). As a result, the original list has been removed with a blank for each non-letter, the error has also been removed, and we are now receiving the desired result.

Conclusion

We hope you have found the best way to resolve this error “TypeError: expected string or bytes-like object” in Python on our page. If there are any other problems with this error, please comment below, and we will reply as soon as possible! Thank you for reading!

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