Convert string of byte array to byte array in python

Question

Say I have a byte array like so

 data = bytes([0x13, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x08, 0x00])

 string_data = str(data)

 print(string_data)
 # "b'\\x13\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x08\\x00'"

I want back byte array from string of data

data = string_of_byte_array_to_byte_array(string_data)

print(data)
# b'\x13\x00\x00\x00\x08\x00'

Note that `str(some_bytes)` is almost never the right thing to do in Python 3. — snakecharmerb, Aug 07 '21 at 15:45

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 07 '21 at 15:35

ast.literal_eval will undo str on a bytes object:

>>> data = bytes([0x13, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x08, 0x00])
>>> s = str(data)
>>> s
"b'\\x13\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x08\\x00'"
>>> import ast
>>> ast.literal_eval(s)
b'\x13\x00\x00\x00\x08\x00'

But there are better ways to view byte data as a hexadecimal string:

>>> data.hex()
'130000000800'
>>> s = data.hex(sep=' ')
>>> s
'13 00 00 00 08 00'
>>> bytes.fromhex(s)
b'\x13\x00\x00\x00\x08\x00'

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 07 '21 at 15:24

1

a_string = ‘abc’
encoded_string = a_string. encode()
byte_array = bytearray(encoded_string)

answered Aug 07 '21 at 15:24

BlackMath

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fsimonjetz · Accepted Answer · 2021-08-07T15:34:30.667

1

You can use ast.literal_eval to revert the string to bytes. (Thank you at Matiiss and Mark Tolonen for pointing out the problems with the eval method)

from ast import literal_eval

data = literal_eval(data_string)

edited Aug 07 '21 at 15:34

answered Aug 07 '21 at 15:26

fsimonjetz

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you should add tho that using `eval` is not safe – Matiiss Aug 07 '21 at 15:27

Convert string of byte array to byte array in python

3 Answers3