Convert bytes to a string in Python 3

I captured the standard output of an external program into a bytes object: >>> from subprocess import * >>> stdout = Popen(['ls', '-l'], stdout=PIPE).communicate()[0] >>> 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' I want to convert that to a normal Python string, so that I can print it like this: >>> print(stdout) -rw-rw-r--

[hirometrics]

bytes like object to string