Decode it.

>>> b'a string'.decode('ascii')
'a string'

To get bytes from string, encode it.

>>> 'a string'.encode('ascii')
b'a string'
Answer from falsetru on Stack Overflow
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Programiz
programiz.com › python-programming › methods › built-in › bin
Python bin() (With Examples)
Here, the prefix 0b in the output 0b101 represents that the result is a binary string. class Quantity: apple = 1 orange = 2 grapes = 2 def func(): return apple + orange + grapes print('The binary equivalent of quantity is:', bin(Quantity())) Output · TypeError: 'Quantity' object cannot be interpreted as an integer · Here, we have passed an object of class Quantity to the bin() method and got a TypeError. This is because we have used a non-integer class. Note: We can fix the TypeError above by using the Python __index__() method with a non-integer class.
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w3resource
w3resource.com › python › built-in-function › bin.php
Python: bin() function - w3resource
April 16, 2026 - x = 10 print("Original number: ",x) print(x) print("Binary string:") print(bin(x)[2:].zfill(8)) x = -10 print("\nOriginal number: ",x) print(x) print("Binary string:") print(bin(x)[3:].zfill(8))
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Real Python
realpython.com › ref › builtin-functions › bin
bin() | Python’s Built-in Functions – Real Python
The built-in bin() function converts an integer number into its binary representation, returning it as a string.
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Reintech
reintech.io › blog › python-bin-method-tutorial
Python: Working with the bin() Method - Reintech
March 24, 2023 - The bin() function is a built-in Python utility that converts integers into their binary string representation.
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HowToDoInJava
howtodoinjava.com › home › python built-in functions › python bin() method
Python bin() - Converting number to binary string
October 1, 2022 - Python bin() method converts a given integer to it’s equivalent binary string, if not number, it has to provide __index__() method which must return integer
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GeeksforGeeks
geeksforgeeks.org › bin-in-python
bin() in Python - GeeksforGeeks
November 15, 2023 - Python bin() function returns the binary string of a given integer. bin() function is used to convert integer to binary string.
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Educative
educative.io › answers › how-to-convert-string-to-binary-in-python
How to convert string to binary in Python
The string, as seen by the computer, is a binary number that is an ASCCI value( Decimal number) of the string converted to binary.
Find elsewhere
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GeeksforGeeks
geeksforgeeks.org › python › python-convert-string-to-binary
Convert String to Binary - Python - GeeksforGeeks
July 12, 2025 - Explanation: converts each character in txt to its 8-bit binary form using ord() and format() then joins them into one binary string using join().
Top answer
1 of 10
174

Something like this?

>>> st = "hello world"
>>> ' '.join(format(ord(x), 'b') for x in st)
'1101000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1110111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100'

#using `bytearray`
>>> ' '.join(format(x, 'b') for x in bytearray(st, 'utf-8'))
'1101000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1110111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100'
2 of 10
133

If by binary you mean bytes type, you can just use encode method of the string object that encodes your string as a bytes object using the passed encoding type. You just need to make sure you pass a proper encoding to encode function.

In [9]: "hello world".encode('ascii')                                                                                                                                                                       
Out[9]: b'hello world'

In [10]: byte_obj = "hello world".encode('ascii')                                                                                                                                                           

In [11]: byte_obj                                                                                                                                                                                           
Out[11]: b'hello world'

In [12]: byte_obj[0]                                                                                                                                                                                        
Out[12]: 104

Otherwise, if you want them in form of zeros and ones --binary representation-- as a more pythonic way you can first convert your string to byte array then use bin function within map :

>>> st = "hello world"
>>> map(bin,bytearray(st))
['0b1101000', '0b1100101', '0b1101100', '0b1101100', '0b1101111', '0b100000', '0b1110111', '0b1101111', '0b1110010', '0b1101100', '0b1100100']
 

Or you can join it:

>>> ' '.join(map(bin,bytearray(st)))
'0b1101000 0b1100101 0b1101100 0b1101100 0b1101111 0b100000 0b1110111 0b1101111 0b1110010 0b1101100 0b1100100'

Note that in python3 you need to specify an encoding for bytearray function :

>>> ' '.join(map(bin,bytearray(st,'utf8')))
'0b1101000 0b1100101 0b1101100 0b1101100 0b1101111 0b100000 0b1110111 0b1101111 0b1110010 0b1101100 0b1100100'

You can also use binascii module in python 2:

>>> import binascii
>>> bin(int(binascii.hexlify(st),16))
'0b110100001100101011011000110110001101111001000000111011101101111011100100110110001100100'

hexlify return the hexadecimal representation of the binary data then you can convert to int by specifying 16 as its base then convert it to binary with bin.

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GeeksforGeeks
geeksforgeeks.org › python › convert-binary-to-string-using-python
Convert binary to string using Python - GeeksforGeeks
July 12, 2025 - Finally, join() combines all characters into a single string. In this approach, the whole binary string is first turned into an integer. Then it’s converted to bytes and finally decoded into a string.
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GeeksforGeeks
geeksforgeeks.org › python-convert-string-to-binary
Python | Convert String to Binary - GeeksforGeeks
May 3, 2023 - The ord function converts the character to it's ASCII equivalent, format converts this to binary number and join is used to join each converted character to form a string. ... # Python3 code to demonstrate working of # Converting String to binary ...
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Mkyong
mkyong.com › home › python › python – how to convert int to a binary string?
Python – How to convert int to a binary string? | mkyong.com
June 2, 2020 - In Python, we can use bin() or format() to convert an integer into a binary string representation.
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AskPython
askpython.com › python › built-in-methods › convert-binary-string-to-normal-string
4 ways to Convert a Binary String to a Normal String - AskPython
April 23, 2023 - Related: Read this article to know more about the conversion of integers to binary. The bin() function is a built-in Python function used to obtain the binary representation of an integer.
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alpharithms
alpharithms.com › home › tutorials › python bin(): binary values handled with ease
Python bin(): Binary Values Handled with Ease - αlphαrithms
June 16, 2022 - The Python bin() method converts an integer value to a string representation of its binary representation. Python’s bin() method can also be used to return the binary representation of any object that has implemented a valid __index__ method.
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Scaler
scaler.com › home › topics › python bin() function
Python bin() Function - Scaler Topics
January 2, 2024 - bin() is an in-built function in Python that takes in integer x and returns the binary representation of x in a string format.
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Reintech
reintech.io › blog › python-exploring-the-bin-method
Python: Exploring the bin() Method - Reintech
The bin() method is a built-in Python function that converts integers to their binary string representation.
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Vultr Docs
docs.vultr.com › python › built-in › bin()
Python bin() - Convert Integer to Binary
September 27, 2024 - ... Here, the binary representation ... be of consistent length, like byte-aligned data manipulation. The bin() function in Python offers a straightforward method to convert integers into their binary representations....