'str' object has no attribute 'decode'. Python 3 error?

Question

Here is my code:

import imaplib
from email.parser import HeaderParser

conn = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL('imap.gmail.com')
conn.login('[email protected]', 'password')
conn.select()
conn.search(None, 'ALL')
data = conn.fetch('1', '(BODY[HEADER])')
header_data = data[1][0][1].decode('utf-8')

at this point I get the error message

AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'decode'

Python 3 doesn't have decode anymore, am I right? how can I fix this?

Also, in:

data = conn.fetch('1', '(BODY[HEADER])')

I am selecting only the 1st email. How do I select all?

Answer 1

You are trying to decode an object that is already decoded. You have a str, there is no need to decode from UTF-8 anymore.

Simply drop the .decode('utf-8') part:

header_data = data[1][0][1]

As for your fetch() call, you are explicitly asking for just the first message. Use a range if you want to retrieve more messages. See the documentation:

The message_set options to commands below is a string specifying one or more messages to be acted upon. It may be a simple message number ('1'), a range of message numbers ('2:4'), or a group of non-contiguous ranges separated by commas ('1:3,6:9'). A range can contain an asterisk to indicate an infinite upper bound ('3:*').

Answer 2

Use it by this Method:

str.encode().decode()

Answer 3

Begining with Python 3, all strings are unicode objects.

  a = 'Happy New Year' # Python 3
  b = unicode('Happy New Year') # Python 2

The instructions above are the same. So I think you should remove the .decode('utf-8') part because you already have a unicode object.

Answer 4

If you land here using jwt authentication after the PyJWT v2.0.0 release (22/12/2020), you might want to freeze your version of PyJWT to the previous release in your requirements.txt file.

PyJWT==1.7.1

Answer 5

For Python3

html = """\\u003Cdiv id=\\u0022contenedor\\u0022\\u003E \\u003Ch2 class=\\u0022text-left m-b-2\\u0022\\u003EInformaci\\u00f3n del veh\\u00edculo de patente AA345AA\\u003C\\/h2\\u003E\\n\\n\\n\\n \\u003Cdiv class=\\u0022panel panel-default panel-disabled m-b-2\\u0022\\u003E\\n \\u003Cdiv class=\\u0022panel-body\\u0022\\u003E\\n \\u003Ch2 class=\\u0022table_title m-b-2\\u0022\\u003EInformaci\\u00f3n del Registro Automotor\\u003C\\/h2\\u003E\\n \\u003Cdiv class=\\u0022col-md-6\\u0022\\u003E\\n \\u003Clabel class=\\u0022control-label\\u0022\\u003ERegistro Seccional\\u003C\\/label\\u003E\\n \\u003Cp\\u003ESAN MIGUEL N\\u00b0 1\\u003C\\/p\\u003E\\n \\u003Clabel class=\\u0022control-label\\u0022\\u003EDirecci\\u00f3n\\u003C\\/label\\u003E\\n \\u003Cp\\u003EMAESTRO ANGEL D\\u0027ELIA 766\\u003C\\/p\\u003E\\n \\u003Clabel class=\\u0022control-label\\u0022\\u003EPiso\\u003C\\/label\\u003E\\n \\u003Cp\\u003EPB\\u003C\\/p\\u003E\\n \\u003Clabel class=\\u0022control-label\\u0022\\u003EDepartamento\\u003C\\/label\\u003E\\n \\u003Cp\\u003E-\\u003C\\/p\\u003E\\n \\u003Clabel class=\\u0022control-label\\u0022\\u003EC\\u00f3digo postal\\u003C\\/label\\u003E\\n \\u003Cp\\u003E1663\\u003C\\/p\\u003E\\n \\u003C\\/div\\u003E\\n \\u003Cdiv class=\\u0022col-md-6\\u0022\\u003E\\n \\u003Clabel class=\\u0022control-label\\u0022\\u003ELocalidad\\u003C\\/label\\u003E\\n \\u003Cp\\u003ESAN MIGUEL\\u003C\\/p\\u003E\\n \\u003Clabel class=\\u0022control-label\\u0022\\u003EProvincia\\u003C\\/label\\u003E\\n \\u003Cp\\u003EBUENOS AIRES\\u003C\\/p\\u003E\\n \\u003Clabel class=\\u0022control-label\\u0022\\u003ETel\\u00e9fono\\u003C\\/label\\u003E\\n \\u003Cp\\u003E(11)46646647\\u003C\\/p\\u003E\\n \\u003Clabel class=\\u0022control-label\\u0022\\u003EHorario\\u003C\\/label\\u003E\\n \\u003Cp\\u003E08:30 a 12:30\\u003C\\/p\\u003E\\n \\u003C\\/div\\u003E\\n \\u003C\\/div\\u003E\\n\\u003C\\/div\\u003E \\n\\n\\u003Cp class=\\u0022text-center m-t-3 m-b-1 hidden-print\\u0022\\u003E\\n \\u003Ca href=\\u0022javascript:window.print();\\u0022 class=\\u0022btn btn-default\\u0022\\u003EImprim\\u00ed la consulta\\u003C\\/a\\u003E \\u0026nbsp; \\u0026nbsp;\\n \\u003Ca href=\\u0022\\u0022 class=\\u0022btn use-ajax btn-primary\\u0022\\u003EHacer otra consulta\\u003C\\/a\\u003E\\n\\u003C\\/p\\u003E\\n\\u003C\\/div\\u003E"""

print(html.replace("\\/", "/").encode().decode('unicode_escape'))

Answer 6

I'm not familiar with the library, but if your problem is that you don't want a byte array, one easy way is to specify an encoding type straight in a cast:

>>> my_byte_str
b'Hello World'

>>> str(my_byte_str, 'utf-8')
'Hello World'

Answer 7

It s already decoded in Python3, Try directly it should work.

Answer 8

This worked for me:

html.replace("\\/", "/").encode().decode('unicode_escape', 'surrogatepass')

This is similar to json.loads(html) behaviour

Answer 9

Use codecs module's open() to read file:

import codecs
with codecs.open(file_name, 'r', encoding='utf-8', errors='ignore') as fdata:

Answer 10

I got 'str' object has no attribute 'decode' while creating JWT access_token using Flask_JWT_extended package.

To fix this issue, I upgraded my Flask-JWT-Extended package to Flask-JWT-Extended==4.1.0

For Reference:

Please Visit this page: https://flask-jwt-extended.readthedocs.io/en/stable/

Answer 11

Other answers sort of hint at it, but the problem may arise from expecting a bytes object. In Python 3, decode is valid when you have an object of class bytes. Running encode before decode may "fix" the problem, but it is a useless pair of operations that suggest the problem us upstream.