TypeError: string argument without an encoding

import struct

def bin_to_float(b):
    """ Convert binary string to a float. """
    bf = int_to_bytes(int(b, 2), 8)  # 8 bytes needed for IEEE 754 binary64
    return struct.unpack('>d', bf)[0]

def int_to_bytes(n, minlen=0):  # helper function
    """ Int/long to byte string. """
    nbits = n.bit_length() + (1 if n < 0 else 0)  # plus one for any sign bit
    nbytes = (nbits+7) // 8  # number of whole bytes
    bytes = []
    for _ in range(nbytes):
        bytes.append(chr(n & 0xff))
        n >>= 8
    if minlen > 0 and len(bytes) < minlen:  # zero pad?
        bytes.extend((minlen-len(bytes)) * '0')
    return ''.join(reversed(bytes))  # high bytes at beginning

# tests

def float_to_bin(f):
    """ Convert a float into a binary string. """
    ba = struct.pack('>d', f)
    ba = bytearray(ba)
    s = ''.join('{:08b}'.format(b) for b in ba)
    s = s.lstrip('0')  # strip leading zeros
    return s if s else '0'  # but leave at least one

for f in 0.0, 1.0, -14.0, 12.546, 3.141593:
    binary = float_to_bin(f)
    print('float_to_bin(%f): %r' % (f, binary))
    float = bin_to_float(binary)
    print('bin_to_float(%r): %f' % (binary, float))
    print('')