I have a long Hex string that represents a series of values of different types. I need to convert this Hex String into bytes or bytearray so that I can extract each value from the raw data. How can I do this?
For example, the string "ab" should convert to the bytes b"\xab" or equivalent byte array. Longer example:
>>> # what to use in place of `convert` here?
>>> convert("8e71c61de6a2321336184f813379ec6bf4a3fb79e63cd12b")
b'\x8eq\xc6\x1d\xe6\xa22\x136\x18O\x813y\xeck\xf4\xa3\xfby\xe6<\xd1+'
Suppose your hex string is something like
>>> hex_string = "deadbeef"
Convert it to a bytearray (Python 3 and 2.7):
>>> bytearray.fromhex(hex_string)
bytearray(b'\xde\xad\xbe\xef')
Convert it to a bytes object (Python 3):
>>> bytes.fromhex(hex_string)
b'\xde\xad\xbe\xef'
Note that bytes is an immutable version of bytearray.
Convert it to a string (Python ≤ 2.7):
>>> hex_data = hex_string.decode("hex")
>>> hex_data
"\xde\xad\xbe\xef"
There is a built-in function in bytearray that does what you intend.
bytearray.fromhex("de ad be ef 00")
It returns a bytearray and it reads hex strings with or without space separator.
provided I understood correctly, you should look for binascii.unhexlify
import binascii
a='45222e'
s=binascii.unhexlify(a)
b=[ord(x) for x in s]
Assuming you have a byte string like so
"\x12\x45\x00\xAB"
and you know the amount of bytes and their type you can also use this approach
import struct
bytes = '\x12\x45\x00\xAB'
val = struct.unpack('<BBH', bytes)
#val = (18, 69, 43776)
As I specified little endian (using the '<' char) at the start of the format string the function returned the decimal equivalent.
0x12 = 18
0x45 = 69
0xAB00 = 43776
B is equal to one byte (8 bit) unsigned
H is equal to two bytes (16 bit) unsigned
More available characters and byte sizes can be found here
The advantages are..
You can specify more than one byte and the endian of the values
Disadvantages..
You really need to know the type and length of data your dealing with
You can use the Codecs module in the Python Standard Library, i.e.
import codecs
codecs.decode(hexstring, 'hex_codec')
You should be able to build a string holding the binary data using something like:
data = "fef0babe"
bits = ""
for x in xrange(0, len(data), 2)
bits += chr(int(data[x:x+2], 16))
This is probably not the fastest way (many string appends), but quite simple using only core Python.
A good one liner is:
byte_list = map(ord, hex_string)
This will iterate over each char in the string and run it through the ord() function. Only tested on python 2.6, not too sure about 3.0+.
-Josh
Related
I have a long Hex string that represents a series of values of different types. I need to convert this Hex String into bytes or bytearray so that I can extract each value from the raw data. How can I do this?
For example, the string "ab" should convert to the bytes b"\xab" or equivalent byte array. Longer example:
>>> # what to use in place of `convert` here?
>>> convert("8e71c61de6a2321336184f813379ec6bf4a3fb79e63cd12b")
b'\x8eq\xc6\x1d\xe6\xa22\x136\x18O\x813y\xeck\xf4\xa3\xfby\xe6<\xd1+'
Suppose your hex string is something like
>>> hex_string = "deadbeef"
Convert it to a bytearray (Python 3 and 2.7):
>>> bytearray.fromhex(hex_string)
bytearray(b'\xde\xad\xbe\xef')
Convert it to a bytes object (Python 3):
>>> bytes.fromhex(hex_string)
b'\xde\xad\xbe\xef'
Note that bytes is an immutable version of bytearray.
Convert it to a string (Python ≤ 2.7):
>>> hex_data = hex_string.decode("hex")
>>> hex_data
"\xde\xad\xbe\xef"
There is a built-in function in bytearray that does what you intend.
bytearray.fromhex("de ad be ef 00")
It returns a bytearray and it reads hex strings with or without space separator.
provided I understood correctly, you should look for binascii.unhexlify
import binascii
a='45222e'
s=binascii.unhexlify(a)
b=[ord(x) for x in s]
Assuming you have a byte string like so
"\x12\x45\x00\xAB"
and you know the amount of bytes and their type you can also use this approach
import struct
bytes = '\x12\x45\x00\xAB'
val = struct.unpack('<BBH', bytes)
#val = (18, 69, 43776)
As I specified little endian (using the '<' char) at the start of the format string the function returned the decimal equivalent.
0x12 = 18
0x45 = 69
0xAB00 = 43776
B is equal to one byte (8 bit) unsigned
H is equal to two bytes (16 bit) unsigned
More available characters and byte sizes can be found here
The advantages are..
You can specify more than one byte and the endian of the values
Disadvantages..
You really need to know the type and length of data your dealing with
You can use the Codecs module in the Python Standard Library, i.e.
import codecs
codecs.decode(hexstring, 'hex_codec')
You should be able to build a string holding the binary data using something like:
data = "fef0babe"
bits = ""
for x in xrange(0, len(data), 2)
bits += chr(int(data[x:x+2], 16))
This is probably not the fastest way (many string appends), but quite simple using only core Python.
A good one liner is:
byte_list = map(ord, hex_string)
This will iterate over each char in the string and run it through the ord() function. Only tested on python 2.6, not too sure about 3.0+.
-Josh
This question already has answers here:
Convert bytes to int?
(7 answers)
Closed 8 months ago.
I receive a 32-bit number over the serial line, using num = ser.read(4). Checking the value of num in the shell returns something like a very unreadable b'\xcbu,\x0c'.
I can check against the ASCII table to find the values of "u" and ",", and determine that the hex value of the received number is actually equal to "cb 75 2c 0c", or in the format that Python outputs, it's b'\xcb\x75\x2c\x0c'. I can also type the value into a calculator and convert it to decimal (or run int(0xcb752c0c) in Python), which returns 3413453836.
How can I do this conversion from a binary string literal to an integer in Python?
I found two alternatives to solve this problem.
Using the int.from_bytes(bytes, byteorder, *, signed=False) method
Using the struct.unpack(format, buffer) from the builtin struct module
Using int.from_bytes
Starting from Python 3.2, you can use int.from_bytes.
Second argument, byteorder, specifies endianness of your bytestring. It can be either 'big' or 'little'. You can also use sys.byteorder to get your host machine's native byteorder.
from the docs:
The byteorder argument determines the byte order used to represent the integer. If byteorder is "big", the most significant byte is at the beginning of the byte array. If byteorder is "little", the most significant byte is at the end of the byte array. To request the native byte order of the host system, use sys.byteorder as the byte order value.
int.from_bytes(bytes, byteorder, *, signed=False)
Code applying in your case:
>>> import sys
>>> int.from_bytes(b'\x11', byteorder=sys.byteorder)
17
>>> bin(int.from_bytes(b'\x11', byteorder=sys.byteorder))
'0b10001'
Here is the official demonstrative code from the docs:
>>> int.from_bytes(b'\x00\x10', byteorder='big')
16
>>> int.from_bytes(b'\x00\x10', byteorder='little')
4096
>>> int.from_bytes(b'\xfc\x00', byteorder='big', signed=True)
-1024
>>> int.from_bytes(b'\xfc\x00', byteorder='big', signed=False)
64512
>>> int.from_bytes([255, 0, 0], byteorder='big')
16711680
Using the struct.unpack method
The function you need to achieve your goal is struct.unpack.
To understand where you can use it, we need to understand the parameters to give and their impact on the result.
struct.unpack(format, buffer)
Unpack from the buffer buffer (presumably packed by pack(format, ...)) according to the format string format. The result is a tuple even if it contains exactly one item. The buffer’s size in bytes must match the size required by the format, as reflected by calcsize().
The buffer is the bytes that we have to give and the format is how the bytestring should be read.
The information will be split into a string, format characters, that can be endianness, ctype, bytesize, ecc..
from the docs:
Format characters have the following meaning; the conversion between C and Python values should be obvious given their types. The ‘Standard size’ column refers to the size of the packed value in bytes when using standard size; that is, when the format string starts with one of '<', '>', '!' or '='. When using native size, the size of the packed value is platform-dependent.
This table represents the format characters currently avaiable in Python 3.10.6:
Format
C-Type
Standard Size
x
pad byte
c
char
1
b
signed char
1
B
uchar
1
?
bool
1
h
short
2
H
ushort
2
i
int
4
I
uint
4
l
long
4
L
ulong
4
q
long long
8
Q
unsigned long long
8
n
ssize_t
N
unsigned ssize_t
f
float
d
double
s
char[]
p
char[]
P
void*
and here is a table to use it to correct byte order:
Character
Byte order
Size
Alignment
#
native
native
Native
=
native
standard
None
<
little-endian
standard
None
>
big-endian
standard
None
!
network (= big-endian)
standard
None
Examples
Here is an example how you can use it:
>>> import struct
>>> format_chars = '<i' #4 bytes, endianness is 'little'
>>> struct.unpack(format_chars,b"f|cs")
(1935899750,)
check the builtin struct module.
https://docs.python.org/3/library/struct.html
in your case, it should probably be something like:
import struct
struct.unpack(">I", b'\xcb\x75\x2c\x0c')
but it depends on Endianness and signed/unsigned, so do read the entire doc.
I have a long Hex string that represents a series of values of different types. I need to convert this Hex String into bytes or bytearray so that I can extract each value from the raw data. How can I do this?
For example, the string "ab" should convert to the bytes b"\xab" or equivalent byte array. Longer example:
>>> # what to use in place of `convert` here?
>>> convert("8e71c61de6a2321336184f813379ec6bf4a3fb79e63cd12b")
b'\x8eq\xc6\x1d\xe6\xa22\x136\x18O\x813y\xeck\xf4\xa3\xfby\xe6<\xd1+'
Suppose your hex string is something like
>>> hex_string = "deadbeef"
Convert it to a bytearray (Python 3 and 2.7):
>>> bytearray.fromhex(hex_string)
bytearray(b'\xde\xad\xbe\xef')
Convert it to a bytes object (Python 3):
>>> bytes.fromhex(hex_string)
b'\xde\xad\xbe\xef'
Note that bytes is an immutable version of bytearray.
Convert it to a string (Python ≤ 2.7):
>>> hex_data = hex_string.decode("hex")
>>> hex_data
"\xde\xad\xbe\xef"
There is a built-in function in bytearray that does what you intend.
bytearray.fromhex("de ad be ef 00")
It returns a bytearray and it reads hex strings with or without space separator.
provided I understood correctly, you should look for binascii.unhexlify
import binascii
a='45222e'
s=binascii.unhexlify(a)
b=[ord(x) for x in s]
Assuming you have a byte string like so
"\x12\x45\x00\xAB"
and you know the amount of bytes and their type you can also use this approach
import struct
bytes = '\x12\x45\x00\xAB'
val = struct.unpack('<BBH', bytes)
#val = (18, 69, 43776)
As I specified little endian (using the '<' char) at the start of the format string the function returned the decimal equivalent.
0x12 = 18
0x45 = 69
0xAB00 = 43776
B is equal to one byte (8 bit) unsigned
H is equal to two bytes (16 bit) unsigned
More available characters and byte sizes can be found here
The advantages are..
You can specify more than one byte and the endian of the values
Disadvantages..
You really need to know the type and length of data your dealing with
You can use the Codecs module in the Python Standard Library, i.e.
import codecs
codecs.decode(hexstring, 'hex_codec')
You should be able to build a string holding the binary data using something like:
data = "fef0babe"
bits = ""
for x in xrange(0, len(data), 2)
bits += chr(int(data[x:x+2], 16))
This is probably not the fastest way (many string appends), but quite simple using only core Python.
A good one liner is:
byte_list = map(ord, hex_string)
This will iterate over each char in the string and run it through the ord() function. Only tested on python 2.6, not too sure about 3.0+.
-Josh
I'm trying to write a file's hex size in the header of another file. When I convert the length to hex I get b'\x00\x00\x00\x04' so it writes "00000004" to the file.
The file's length is stored in 2 byte intervals though, so I need it to format the string to this b'\x00\x04'. what the easiest way to do this?
import mmap
def compact_bytes(values):
return (values[0] << 4)| values[2]
I tried this but I know it's not correct and not the proper method.
You are converting a number into bytes, not hex. Use the struct module to do this:
struct.pack('>H', values)
This produces an unsigned short, 2 bytes, in big endian order; for the length 4 that'd produce \x00\x04:
>>> import struct
>>> struct.pack('>H', 4)
b'\x00\x04'
Assuming the integer is an big endian unsigned short, use struct.pack with the big endian flag.
struct.pack('>H', values)
In this format string, > is the big endian flag, and H is unsigned short.
Example:
>>> import struct
>>> struct.pack('>H', 4)
b'\x00\x04'
You can find all the struct format characters here.
>>> 4 .to_bytes(2, 'big')
b'\x00\x04'
I'm implementing PKCS#7 padding right now in Python and need to pad chunks of my file in order to amount to a number divisible by sixteen. I've been recommended to use the following method to append these bytes:
input_chunk += '\x00'*(-len(input_chunk)%16)
What I need to do is the following:
input_chunk_remainder = len(input_chunk) % 16
input_chunk += input_chunk_remainder * input_chunk_remainder
Obviously, the second line above is wrong; I need to convert the first input_chunk_remainder to a single byte string. How can I do this in Python?
In Python 3, you can create bytes of a given numeric value with the bytes() type; you can pass in a list of integers (between 0 and 255):
>>> bytes([5])
b'\x05'
bytes([5] * 5)
b'\x05\x05\x05\x05\x05'
An alternative method is to use an array.array() with the right number of integers:
>>> import array
>>> array.array('B', 5*[5]).tobytes()
b'\x05\x05\x05\x05\x05'
or use the struct.pack() function to pack your integers into bytes:
>>> import struct
>>> struct.pack('{}B'.format(5), *(5 * [5]))
b'\x05\x05\x05\x05\x05'
There may be more ways.. :-)
In Python 2 (ancient now), you can do the same by using the chr() function:
>>> chr(5)
'\x05'
>>> chr(5) * 5
'\x05\x05\x05\x05\x05'
In Python3, the bytes built-in accepts a sequence of integers. So for just one integer:
>>> bytes([5])
b'\x05'
Of course, thats bytes, not a string. But in Python3 world, OP would probably use bytes for the app he described, anyway.