code: def _convert_string_to_unicode(string):
      
      result = string
  
      try:
          if string is not None and not isinstance(string, six.text_type):
              result = string.decode('utf-8')
      except (TypeError, UnicodeDecodeError, AttributeError):
          # Sometimes the string actually is binary or StringIO object,
          # so if you can't decode it, just give up.
          pass
  
      return result
docs: If the string is bytes, decode it to a string (for python3 support)