Convert a Unicode string to a string in Python (containing extra symbols)

Question

How do you convert a Unicode string (containing extra characters like £ $, etc.) into a Python string?

Answer 1

Here is an example:

>>> u = u'€€€'
>>> s = u.encode('utf8')
>>> s
'\xe2\x82\xac\xe2\x82\xac\xe2\x82\xac'