# pydicom.charset.decode_string

`pydicom.charset.``decode_string`(value, encodings, delimiters)

  Decode an encoded byte value into a unicode string using encodings.

  New in version 1.2.

  Parameters:

  - value (bytes or str) – The encoded byte string in the DICOM element value. Should be `bytes` for Python 3 and `str` for Python 2.
  - encodings (list of str) – The encodings needed to decode the string as a list of Python encodings, converted from the encodings in (0008,0005) Specific Character Set.
  - delimiters (set of int (Python 3) or characters (Python 2)) – A set of characters or character codes, each of which resets the encoding in value.

  Returns: | The decoded unicode string. If the value could not be decoded, and `enforce_valid_values` is `False`, a warning is issued, and value is decoded using the first encoding with replacement characters, resulting in data loss. Returns `str` for Python 3 and `unicode` for Python 2.
  Return type: | str or unicode
  Raises: | `UnicodeDecodeError` – If `enforce_valid_values` is `True` and value could not be decoded with the given encodings.