Best way to convert string to bytes in Python 3?

Question

There appear to be two different ways to convert a string to bytes, as seen in the answers to TypeError: 'str' does not support the buffer interface

Which of

Answer 1

It's easier than it is thought:

my_str = "hello world"
my_str_as_bytes = str.encode(my_str)
type(my_str_as_bytes) # ensure it is byte representation
my_decoded_str = my_str_as_bytes.decode()
type(my_decoded_str) # ensure it is string representation