From 61b66813efe84d4d2be5726f736af297b69e468b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: francescoingv <9592487+francescoingv@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2026 10:38:05 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Update base64 encoding to return UTF-8 string

Fixed a simple error in json_serial() not returning a string:
Decode base64 encoded JSON object to UTF-8 string.
---
 pygeoapi/util.py | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/pygeoapi/util.py b/pygeoapi/util.py
index c91a4c3e0..bf91ae890 100644
--- a/pygeoapi/util.py
+++ b/pygeoapi/util.py
@@ -378,7 +378,7 @@ def json_serial(obj: Any) -> str:
             return obj.decode('utf-8')
         except UnicodeDecodeError:
             LOGGER.debug('Returning as base64 encoded JSON object')
-            return base64.b64encode(obj)
+            return base64.b64encode(obj).decode('utf-8')
     elif isinstance(obj, Decimal):
         return float(obj)
     elif type(obj).__name__ in ['int32', 'int64']: