Take str or unicode in, return utf-8 encoded string, with 'bad' characters stripped

gistfile1.py

def utf8(data):
"""Takes in str or unicode, returns utf-8 string, stripping invalid chars."""

    if type(data) not in [str, unicode]:
        raise TypeError("'data' must be str or unicode")
        
    try: 
        if type(data) is unicode:
            s = data.encode('utf-8', 'ignore')
        elif type(data) is str:
            s = data.decode('utf-8', 'ignore').encode('utf-8', 'ignore')

        return s

    except UnicodeError as exc:
        raise