Python Forum

i can convert an int to bytes by first converting to hexadecimal characters (and maybe prefixing a '0' to make an even number of digits). is there any more direct way to convert an int to the binary equivalent sequence of bytes without doing the hexadecimal conversion and/or adjusting the number of hexadecimal digits to a multiple of two.

for those of you that like to have code you can squish in your fingers...

bytes_to_int.py:

t = bytes,bytearray
def bytes_to_int(bytes=None):
    """Convert bytes or bytearray to int."""
    if bytes is None:
        return None
    if isinstance(bytes,t):
        return int.from_bytes(bytes)
    raise TypeError('arg 1 type must be bytes or bytearray')

int_to_bytes.py:

t = int
def int_to_bytes(int=None):
    """Convert int to bytes."""
    if int is None:
        return None
    if isinstance(int,t):
        h=hex(int)[2:]
        if len(h)%2:
            h='0'+h
        return bytes.fromhex(h)
    raise TypeError('arg 1 type must be int')

the above code is not tested, yet. i may test it, some day.

You could could first convert the integer to a list of 'bits', then format some output of that list, maybe in groups of four for the 'bytes', or maybe as a simple stream of 'bits'

dec = 101
bits = [bit for bit in str(bin(dec))[2:]]
print(''.join(bit for bit in bits))

Output:
1100101

Or maybe there's a point here that I'm missing.

Isn't int.to_bytes() the contrary of int.from_bytes()?

oooh, i completely missed that one. must have not done the "_" version of the attribute name when i searched.

can you message to me what that link was? i can't remember it from so long ago. i want to figure out if something got 0wn3d.