s="'2014/9/18 23:16:34'"
c = bytearray(str(s).encode("gbk"))
# bytes object
b = b"example"
# str object
s = "example"
# str to bytes
bytes(s, encoding = "utf8")
# bytes to str
str(b, encoding = "utf-8")
# an alternative method
# str to bytes
str.encode(s)
# bytes to str
bytes.decode(b)