How do I get rid of the b-prefix in a string in python?

decode the bytes to produce a str:

b = b'1234'
print(b.decode('utf-8'))  # '1234'

The object you are printing is not a string, but rather a bytes object as a byte literal.

Consider creating a byte object by typing a byte literal (literally defining a byte object without actually using a byte object e.g. by typing b'') and converting it into a string object encoded in utf-8. (Note that converting here means decoding)

byte_object= b"test" # byte object by literally typing characters
print(byte_object) # Prints b'test'
print(byte_object.decode('utf8')) # Prints "test" without quotations

We simply applied the .decode(utf8) function.

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String literals are described by the following lexical definitions:

https://docs.python.org/3.3/reference/lexical_analysis.html#string-and-bytes-literals

stringliteral   ::=  [stringprefix](shortstring | longstring)
stringprefix    ::=  "r" | "u" | "R" | "U"
shortstring     ::=  "'" shortstringitem* "'" | '"' shortstringitem* '"'
longstring      ::=  "'''" longstringitem* "'''" | '"""' longstringitem* '"""'
shortstringitem ::=  shortstringchar | stringescapeseq
longstringitem  ::=  longstringchar | stringescapeseq
shortstringchar ::=  <any source character except "\" or newline or the quote>
longstringchar  ::=  <any source character except "\">
stringescapeseq ::=  "\" <any source character>

bytesliteral   ::=  bytesprefix(shortbytes | longbytes)
bytesprefix    ::=  "b" | "B" | "br" | "Br" | "bR" | "BR" | "rb" | "rB" | "Rb" | "RB"
shortbytes     ::=  "'" shortbytesitem* "'" | '"' shortbytesitem* '"'
longbytes      ::=  "'''" longbytesitem* "'''" | '"""' longbytesitem* '"""'
shortbytesitem ::=  shortbyteschar | bytesescapeseq
longbytesitem  ::=  longbyteschar | bytesescapeseq
shortbyteschar ::=  <any ASCII character except "\" or newline or the quote>
longbyteschar  ::=  <any ASCII character except "\">
bytesescapeseq ::=  "\" <any ASCII character>