code: def decode(value, strip=False):
      
      if value is None:
          return None
      if isinstance(value, bytes) and not isinstance(value, unicode):
          value = value.decode("utf-8")
      if strip:
          return unicode(value).strip()
      return unicode(value)
docs: Python 2/3 friendly decoding of output.
  
      Args:
          value (str | unicode | bytes | None): The value to decode.
          strip (bool): If True, `strip()` the returned string. (Default value = False)
  
      Returns:
          str: Decoded value, if applicable.