title: How to convert AES encrypt output bytes to string and vise versa
body: <p>I want to encrypt texts using PyCrypto AES and write the output ciphertext to a text file. As you know the <code>encrypt()</code> output returns bytes and so I have to decode it to unicode first for it to be accepted by <code>write()</code> method. My problem is both <code>str()</code> and <code>decode()</code> methods throw the same error: </p>
  
  <pre><code>UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xc7 in position 0: invalid continuation byte
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Here's part of the encrypted text I'm trying to decode to utf-8:</p>
  
  <p>...<code>\xa5- \xd9\x14_\x02\x18\x96\xde\xbb\xad\xb57&gt;\xe5i\x82H\x9b\xcc\x19y\x0f\x89\x0c~\x81\xb5(\xcc|6\x0b\x1c\xa3\x93E\x91d\xa4\x01\xb3\x98C\xb4,\x94@,\xb0\xb0\xd7\xe2\xf7\xf6U\x129B\xd6#u\x02\xc3\xe4l\xa3\x05V\x143\xe6\x85-\x88\x7f\x14\xc0\x1e\x1d\x19vQ\xbe\xc3\xda8\x06\xaf\xb9\xb7F\x91\xa6\xba&amp;\xcb\xd7\xd0\x12\xed\xfd\xd3n\x06\xb6\x8fZ\xccpO\x05f\x</code>...</p>