string - Suppress/ print without b' prefix for bytes in Python 3

Question

Just posting this so I can search for it later, as it always seems to stump me:

$ python3.2
Python 3.2 (r32:88445, Oct 20 2012, 14:09:50) 
[GCC 4.5.2] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import curses
>>> print(curses.version)
b'2.2'
>>> print(str(curses.version))
b'2.2'
>>> print(curses.version.encode('utf-8'))
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'bytes' object has no attribute 'encode'
>>> print(str(curses.version).encode('utf-8'))
b"b'2.2'"

As question: how to print a binary (bytes) string in Python 3, without the b' prefix?

Answer 1

Use decode:

print(curses.version.decode())
# 2.2