Converting to binary in MATLAB and Python

Question

I have some Matlab code that I am trying to convert to Python.

In Matlab the code takes a string and converts it to a double, then to binary.

x = dec2bin(double(string), 8);

Now, the string has numbers, letters, decimal points, and commas. Matlab has no problems converting this.

Is there anything in Python that can do this?

I've tried using bin(), changing the string to a float first, various Numpy options like:

x = numpy.base_repr(string, 2, 8)

and

numpy.binary_repr()

Answer 1

You can do it easily with:

>>> string = "foo"
>>> res = [bin(ord(i)) for i in string]
['0b1100110', '0b1101111', '0b1101111']

The same example in matlab gives the same result:

>>> dec2bin(double('foo'), 8)
01100110
01101111
01101111