Solving Python urllib TypeError: can’t concat bytes to str

Python urllib TypeError: can’t concat bytes to str is an error which occurs when you use urllib and make a type mistake related to the data argument.

Today I will be explaining why this error is taking place and how to solve it.

Exploring the Error : Python urllib TypeError: can’t concat bytes to str

This is an error which occurs when you use urllib and make a type mistake related to the data argument.

Beware of mixing between errors. Double check if the error message looks like the error message bellow, then continue.

                                                                       #
TypeError: can't concat bytes to str
                                                                       #

Bellow, I am going to explain the cause of the problem and propose a great method that can solve the issue.

The Method that fixed my issue : Make the data argument of urllib.request.urlopen() a byte-like object

When working with urllib, you will usually use urllib.request.urlopen() and there is a great chance that the error you are getting occurs because of a reason related to it.

The other half of the error message suggest that urllib.request.urlopen() expects a bytes-like object in the data argument.

You can fix the error by making sure the data is a byte. You should replace the line bellow

                                                                       #
urllib.request.urlopen("{api_url}", data=headers)
                                                                       #

with this line of code

                                                                       #
urllib.request.urlopen({api_url}, data=bytes(json.dumps(headers), encoding="utf-8"))
                                                                       #

We essentially replaced headers with bytes(json.dumps(headers), encoding=”utf-8″) in order to make the data a byte-like object.

I hope he error is gone and thank you for reading this guide to the end.

I hope the methods above have been helpful, cheers.

Summing-up : 

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Thank you for reading, keep coding and cheers. If you want to learn more about Python, please check out the Python Documentation : https://docs.python.org/3/