The body of the event data as a string if the data is of a
        compatible type.

        :param encoding: The encoding to use for decoding message data.
         Default is 'UTF-8'
        :rtype: str or unicode

def body_as_str(self, encoding='UTF-8'):
        """
        The body of the event data as a string if the data is of a
        compatible type.

        :param encoding: The encoding to use for decoding message data.
         Default is 'UTF-8'
        :rtype: str or unicode
        """
        data = self.body
        try:
            return "".join(b.decode(encoding) for b in data)
        except TypeError:
            return six.text_type(data)
        except:  # pylint: disable=bare-except
            pass
        try:
            return data.decode(encoding)
        except Exception as e:
            raise TypeError("Message data is not compatible with string type: {}".format(e))