code: def to_unicode(obj, encoding='utf-8', fallback='latin1', **decode_args):
      r
  
      # Note: on py3, the `bytes` type defines an unhelpful "__str__" function,
      # so we need to do this check (see comments in ``to_str``).
      if not isinstance(obj, binary_type):
          if isinstance(obj, text_type) or hasattr(obj, text_type_magicmethod):
              return text_type(obj)
  
          obj_str = binary_type(obj)
      else:
          obj_str = obj
  
      try:
          return text_type(obj_str, encoding, **decode_args)
      except UnicodeDecodeError:
          return text_type(obj_str, fallback, **decode_args)
docs: r"""
      Returns a ``unicode`` of ``obj``, decoding using ``encoding`` if necessary.
      If decoding fails, the ``fallback`` encoding (default ``latin1``) is used.
  
      Examples::
  
          >>> r(to_unicode(b'\xe1\x88\xb4'))
          u'\u1234'
          >>> r(to_unicode(b'\xff'))
          u'\xff'
          >>> r(to_unicode(u'\u1234'))
          u'\u1234'
          >>> r(to_unicode(Exception(u'\u1234')))
          u'\u1234'
          >>> r(to_unicode([42]))
          u'[42]'
  
      See source code for detailed semantics.