I'm using this code to get standard output from an external program: >>> from subprocess import * >>> command_stdout = Popen(['ls', '-l'], stdout=PIPE).communicate()[0]The communicate() method returns an array of bytes: >>> command_stdout b'total 0\\n-rw-rw-r-- 1 thomas thomas 0 Mar 3 07:03 file1\\n-rw-rw-r-- 1 thomas thomas 0 Mar 3 07:03 file2\\n'However, I'd like to work with the output as a normal Python string. So that I could print it like this: >>> print(command_stdout) -rw-rw-r-- 1 thomas thomas 0 Mar 3 07:03 file1 -rw-rw-r-- 1 thomas thomas 0 Mar 3 07:03 file2I thought that's what the [binascii.b2a_qp()](http://docs.python.org/3.0/library/binascii.html?highlight=b2a#binascii.b2a_qp) method is for, but when I tried it, I got the same byte array again: >>> binascii.b2a_qp(command_stdout) b'total 0\\n-rw-rw-r-- 1 thomas thomas 0 Mar 3 07:03 file1\\n-rw-rw-r-- 1 thomas thomas 0 Mar 3 07:03 file2\\n'Does anybody know how to convert the bytes value back to string? I mean, using the "batteries" instead of doing it manually. And I'd like it to be ok with Python 3.
