I want to extract data from a file whoose information is stored in big-endian and always unsigned. How does the "cast" from unsigned int to int affect the actual decimal value? Am I correct that the most left bit decides about the whether the value is positive or negative?
I want to parse that file-format with python, and reading and unsigned value is easy:
def toU32(bits):
return ord(bits[0]) << 24 | ord(bits[1]) << 16 | ord(bits[2]) << 8 | ord(bits[3])
but how would the corresponding toS32 function look like?
Thanks for the info about the struct-module. But I am still interested in the solution about my actual question.
I would use struct.
import struct
def toU32(bits):
return struct.unpack_from(">I", bits)[0]
def toS32(bits):
return struct.unpack_from(">i", bits)[0]
The format string, ">I", means read a big endian, ">", unsigned integer, "I", from the string bits. For signed integers you can use ">i".
EDIT
Had to look at another StackOverflow answer to remember how to "convert" a signed integer from an unsigned integer in python. Though it is less of a conversion and more of reinterpreting the bits.
import struct
def toU32(bits):
return ord(bits[0]) << 24 | ord(bits[1]) << 16 | ord(bits[2]) << 8 | ord(bits[3])
def toS32(bits):
candidate = toU32(bits);
if (candidate >> 31): # is the sign bit set?
return (-0x80000000 + (candidate & 0x7fffffff)) # "cast" it to signed
return candidate
for x in range(-5,5):
bits = struct.pack(">i", x)
print toU32(bits)
print toS32(bits)
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