Word of Hexadecimal Value in Python

Question

Crucial terminology aside, the word value of 0xFF20 is -224. From int( 'FF20', 16 ) I get 65312.

Considering the high-level nature of the language, what is the method for getting the "word" value of a hex string in Python?

Answer 1

If you want the signed value, like Pantashu mentioned, then you could use ctypes

ctypes.c_short(int('FF20', 16)).value

Answer 2

If the first character has its high bit set (8-F), then subtract the value 0x1000... (number of 0s equal to the number of hexidecimal characters in the word) from your value after parsing it.

e.g. FF20 has its high bit set, convert it to decimal and subtract 0x10000 from it (65536 - 65312 = -224)

You can compute the value 0x100... by computing 2 to the power of 4*number of hexidecimal characters in word. e.g. 2^(4*4) = 65536