Python 3 how to convert a list of bytes objects to a list of strings?

[Cameron Simpson]

On 29Aug2020 16:50, Chris Green <cl at isbd.net> wrote:
>However the problem appears to be that internally in Python 3 mailbox
>class there is an assumption that it's being given 'ascii'.  Here's
>the error (and I'm doing no processing of the message at all):-
>
>    Traceback (most recent call last):
>      File "/home/chris/.mutt/bin/filter.py", line 102, in <module>
>        mailLib.deliverMboxMsg(dest, msg, log)
>      File "/home/chris/.mutt/bin/mailLib.py", line 52, in deliverMboxMsg
>        mbx.add(msg)
[...]

Here is the entire save-to-mbox code form my own mailfiler:

    text = M.as_string(True).replace('\nFrom ', '\n>From ')
    with open(folderpath, "a") as mboxfp:
          mboxfp.write(text)

where M is the current message, a Message object.

Note that this does _not_ assume ASCII output. The process here is:

- transcribe the message to a Python 3 str (so Unicode code points)
- replace embedded "From " to protect the mbox format
- open the mbox for append - the _default_ encoding is utf-8
- write the message in utf-8 because of the open mode

This sidesteps the library you're using which may well do something 
ASCII based. And it has _never_ failed for me.

Cheers,
Cameron Simpson <cs at cskk.id.au>