ref(api/utils): remove encode() function from api/utils that is not used anywhere

Author: helgi

rootfs/api/utils.py

@@ -110,14 +110,6 @@ def fingerprint(key):
     return ':'.join(a + b for a, b in zip(fp_plain[::2], fp_plain[1::2]))
 
 
-def encode(obj):
-    """Return UTF-8 encoding for string objects."""
-    if isinstance(obj, basestring):
-        return obj.encode('utf-8')
-    else:
-        return obj
-
-
 def dict_merge(origin, merge):
     """
     Recursively merges dict's. not just simple a["key"] = b["key"], if