diff --git a/TOOLS/file2string.py b/TOOLS/file2string.py
index bdeb18ce868fe..b641a1df2f47f 100755
--- a/TOOLS/file2string.py
+++ b/TOOLS/file2string.py
@@ -22,26 +22,21 @@
 # License along with mpv.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 #
 
-from __future__ import unicode_literals
 import sys
 
-# Indexing a byte string yields int on Python 3.x, and a str on Python 2.x
-def pord(c):
-    return ord(c) if type(c) == str else c
-
 def file2string(infilename, infile, outfile):
     outfile.write("// Generated from %s\n\n" % infilename)
 
-    conv = ['\\' + ("%03o" % c) for c in range(256)]
+    conv = ["\\%03o" % c for c in range(256)]
     safe_chars = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" \
-                 "0123456789!#%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?[]^_{|}~ "
+                 "0123456789!#%&'()*+,-./:;<=>[]^_{|}~ "
 
     for c in safe_chars:
         conv[ord(c)] = c
     for c, esc in ("\nn", "\tt", r"\\", '""'):
         conv[ord(c)] = '\\' + esc
     for line in infile:
-        outfile.write('"' + ''.join(conv[pord(c)] for c in line) + '"\n')
+        outfile.write('"' + ''.join(conv[c] for c in line) + '"\n')
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     with open(sys.argv[1], 'rb') as infile:
diff --git a/waftools/generators/sources.py b/waftools/generators/sources.py
index 0f5b993758f77..dae1985e2d615 100644
--- a/waftools/generators/sources.py
+++ b/waftools/generators/sources.py
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ def f2s(self):
     def fn(out):
         source = getattr(self, 'source', None)
         src = self.path.find_resource(source)
-        file2string(source, iter(src.read().splitlines(True)), out)
+        file2string(source, iter(src.read('rb').splitlines(True)), out)
     execf(self, fn)
 
 @TaskGen.feature('ebml_header')