Converting utf-8 encoded to string from user input in python

a = 'xe6xb8xacxe8xa9xa6'
print(bytes(a, 'latin-1').decode('utf-8'))

a = input("input:")
print(bytes(a, 'latin-1').decode('utf-8'))

The first one can print out the result correctly
While the second one will just print out the string I entered

output:

測試
input:xe6xb8xacxe8xa9xa6
xe6xb8xacxe8xa9xa6

Process finished with exit code 0

Answer

The transformation is a bit tricky:

# Use r'', simulate input
a = r'xe6xb8xacxe8xa9xa6'

print(a.encode('ascii').decode('unicode-escape').encode('latin-1').decode('utf-8'))

Follow the transformation:

# Step 0 (initial)
print(a)
xe6xb8xacxe8xa9xa6

# Step 1
print(a.encode('ascii'))
b'\xe6\xb8\xac\xe8\xa9\xa6'

# Step 2
print(a.encode('ascii').decode('unicode-escape'))
測試

# Step 3
print(a.encode('ascii').decode('unicode-escape').encode('latin-1'))
b'xe6xb8xacxe8xa9xa6'

# Step 4 (final)
print(a.encode('ascii').decode('unicode-escape').encode('latin-1').decode('utf-8'))
測試