CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonencodingbytebinary-data
Bryant
Bryant

Reputation: 3601

convert python string of byte data to bytes

I have a Python string of bytes data. An example string looks like this:

string = "b'\xabVJ-K\xcd+Q\xb2R*.M*N.\xcaLJU\xd2QJ\xceH\xcc\xcbK\xcd\x01\x89\x16\xe4\x97\xe8\x97d&g\xa7\x16Y\x85\x06\xbb8\xeb\x02\t\xa5Z\x00'"

It is a string, it not not bytes. I wish to convert it to bytes. Normal approaches (like encode) yield this:

b'\\xabVJ-K\\xcd+Q\\xb2R*.M*N.\\xcaLJU\\xd2QJ\\xceH\\xcc\\xcbK\\xcd\\x01\\x89\\x16\\xe4\\x97\\xe8\\x97d&g\\xa7\\x16Y\\x85\\x06\\xbb8\\xeb\\x02\\t\\xa5Z\\x00'

which leads to issues (note the addition of all the extra slashes).

I've looked through 10+ potential answers to this question on SO and only one of them works, and its a solution I'd prefer not to use, for obvious reasons:

this_works = eval(string)

Is there any way to get this to work without eval? Other potential solutions I've tried, that failed:

Option 1 Option 2 Option 3

Upvotes: 1

Views: 646

Answers (1)

ont.rif
ont.rif

Reputation: 1334

I assume that you have python-like string representation in variable s:

s = r"b'\xabVJ-K\xcd+Q\xb2R*.M*N.\xcaLJU\xd2QJ\xceH\xcc\xcbK\xcd\x01\x89\x16\xe4\x97\xe8\x97d&g\xa7\x16Y\x85\x06\xbb8\xeb\x02\t\xa5Z\x00'"

Yes, if you eval this then you got real python bytes object. But you can try parse it with ast module:

import ast
s = r"b'\xabVJ-K\xcd+Q\xb2R*.M*N.\xcaLJU\xd2QJ\xceH\xcc\xcbK\xcd\x01\x89\x16\xe4\x97\xe8\x97d&g\xa7\x16Y\x85\x06\xbb8\xeb\x02\t\xa5Z\x00'"
tree = ast.parse(s)
value = tree.body[0].value.value
print(type(value), value)

This will output your bytes object:

<class 'bytes'> b'\xabVJ-K\xcd+Q\xb2R*.M*N.\xcaLJU\xd2QJ\xceH\xcc\xcbK\xcd\x01\x89\x16\xe4\x97\xe8\x97d&g\xa7\x16Y\x85\x06\xbb8\xeb\x02\t\xa5Z\x00'

Upvotes: 1

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