NamedPipe.py causing ha_interface.py:_readInterface exception: can only concatenate str (not "bytes") to str

[Anthony Stabile]

Running Pytomation on a Pi v3 Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) with Python 3.8.11.

I implemented a NamedPipe interface and determined that ha_interface.py raised a silent exception in _readInterface.

The exception that occurred was:  can only concatenate str (not "bytes") to str

As a quick fix, I added .decode('utf-8') to the result in named_pipe.py 

diff --git a/pytomation/interfaces/named_pipe.py b/pytomation/interfaces/named_pipe.py

index a86e9b0..3793836 100644

--- a/pytomation/interfaces/named_pipe.py

+++ b/pytomation/interfaces/named_pipe.py

@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ class NamedPipe(Interface):

     def read(self, bufferSize=1024):

         result = ''

         try:

-            result = os.read(self._pipe, bufferSize)

+            result = os.read(self._pipe, bufferSize).decode('utf-8')

         except OSError as ex:

             self._logger.debug('Nothing to read in pipe: %s' % ex)

         except Exception as ex:

I referenced this guide to learn about the differences in File I/O in Python 2 vs 3.    

https://portingguide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/strings.html

A better solution may be to open the pipe in a mode that returns a str instead of bytes.

Thoughts?