Bits¶
The Bits
class is the simplest type in the bitstring module, and represents an immutable sequence of bits. This is the best class to use if you will not need to modify the data after creation and don’t need streaming methods.
- class Bits(auto: BitsType | int | None, /, length: int | None = None, offset: int | None = None, **kwargs)¶
Creates a new bitstring. You must specify either no initialiser, just an ‘auto’ value as the first parameter, or a keyword argument such as
bytes
,bin
,hex
,oct
,uint
,int
,float
,bool
orfilename
(for example) to indicate the data type. If no initialiser is given then a zeroed bitstring oflength
bits is created.The initialiser for the
Bits
class is precisely the same as forBitArray
,BitStream
andConstBitStream
.offset
is available when using thebytes
orfilename
initialisers. It gives a number of bits to ignore at the start of the bitstring.Specifying
length
is mandatory when using the various integer initialisers. It must be large enough that a bitstring can contain the integer inlength
bits. It must also be specified for the float initialisers (the only valid values are 16, 32 and 64). It is optional for thebytes
andfilename
initialisers and can be used to truncate data from the end of the input value.>>> s1 = Bits(hex='0x934') >>> s2 = Bits(oct='0o4464') >>> s3 = Bits(bin='0b001000110100') >>> s4 = Bits(int=-1740, length=12) >>> s5 = Bits(uint=2356, length=12) >>> s6 = Bits(bytes=b'\x93@', length=12) >>> s1 == s2 == s3 == s4 == s5 == s6 True
See also The auto initialiser, which allows many different types to be used to initialise a bitstring.
>>> s = Bits('uint12=32, 0b110') >>> t = Bits('0o755, ue=12, int:3=-1')
In the methods below we use
BitsType
to indicate that any of the types that can auto initialise can be used.
Methods¶
- Bits.all(value: bool, pos: Iterable[int] | None = None) bool ¶
Returns
True
if all of the specified bits are all set to value, otherwise returnsFalse
.If value is
True
then1
bits are checked for, otherwise0
bits are checked for.pos should be an iterable of bit positions. Negative numbers are treated in the same way as slice indices and it will raise an
IndexError
ifpos < -len(s)
orpos > len(s)
. It defaults to the whole bitstring.>>> s = Bits('int15=-1') >>> s.all(True, [3, 4, 12, 13]) True >>> s.all(1) True
- Bits.any(value: bool, pos: Iterable[int] | None = None) bool ¶
Returns
True
if any of the specified bits are set to value, otherwise returnsFalse
.If value is
True
then1
bits are checked for, otherwise0
bits are checked for.pos should be an iterable of bit positions. Negative numbers are treated in the same way as slice indices and it will raise an
IndexError
ifpos < -len(s)
orpos > len(s)
. It defaults to the whole bitstring.>>> s = Bits('0b11011100') >>> s.any(False, range(6)) True >>> s.any(1) True
- Bits.copy() Bits ¶
Returns a copy of the bitstring.
s.copy()
is equivalent to the shallow copys[:]
and creates a new copy of the bitstring in memory.
- Bits.count(value: bool) int ¶
Returns the number of bits set to value.
value can be
True
orFalse
or anything that can be cast to a bool, so you could equally use1
or0
.>>> s = BitArray(1000000) >>> s.set(1, [4, 44, 444444]) >>> s.count(1) 3 >>> s.count(False) 999997
If you need to count more than just single bits you can use
findall
, for examplelen(list(s.findall('0xabc')))
. Note that if the bitstring is very sparse, as in the example here, it could be quicker to find and count all the set bits with something likelen(list(s.findall('0b1')))
. For bitstrings with more entropy thecount
method will be much quicker than finding.
- Bits.cut(bits: int, start: int | None = None, end: int | None = None, count: int | None = None) Iterator[Bits] ¶
Returns a generator for slices of the bitstring of length bits.
At most count items are returned and the range is given by the slice [start:end], which defaults to the whole bitstring.
>>> s = BitArray('0x1234') >>> for nibble in s.cut(4): ... s.prepend(nibble) >>> print(s) 0x43211234
- Bits.endswith(bs: BitsType, start: int | None = None, end: int | None = None) bool ¶
Returns
True
if the bitstring ends with the sub-string bs, otherwise returnsFalse
.A slice can be given using the start and end bit positions and defaults to the whole bitstring.
>>> s = Bits('0x35e22') >>> s.endswith('0b10, 0x22') True >>> s.endswith('0x22', start=13) False
- Bits.find(bs: BitsType, start: int | None = None, end: int | None = None, bytealigned: bool | None = None) Tuple[int] | Tuple[()] ¶
Searches for bs in the current bitstring and sets
pos
to the start of bs and returns it in a tuple if found, otherwise it returns an empty tuple.The reason for returning the bit position in a tuple is so that it evaluates as True even if the bit position is zero. This allows constructs such as
if s.find('0xb3'):
to work as expected.If bytealigned is
True
then it will look for bs only at byte aligned positions (which is generally much faster than searching for it in every possible bit position). start and end give the search range and default to the whole bitstring.>>> s = Bits('0x0023122') >>> s.find('0b000100', bytealigned=True) (16,)
- Bits.findall(bs: BitsType, start: int | None = None, end: int | None = None, count: int | None = None, bytealigned: bool | None = None) Iterable[int] ¶
Searches for all occurrences of bs (even overlapping ones) and returns a generator of their bit positions.
If bytealigned is
True
then bs will only be looked for at byte aligned positions. start and end optionally define a search range and default to the whole bitstring.The count parameter limits the number of items that will be found - the default is to find all occurrences.
>>> s = Bits('0xab220101')*5 >>> list(s.findall('0x22', bytealigned=True)) [8, 40, 72, 104, 136]
- classmethod Bits.fromstring(s: str, /) Bits ¶
Creates a new bitstring from the formatted string s. It is equivalent to creating a new bitstring using s as the first parameters, but can be clearer to write and will be slightly faster.
>>> b1 = Bits('int16=91') >>> b2 = Bits.fromstring('int16=91') >>> b1 == b2 True
- Bits.join(sequence: Iterable) Bits ¶
Returns the concatenation of the bitstrings in the iterable sequence joined with
self
as a separator.>>> s = Bits().join(['0x0001ee', 'uint:24=13', '0b0111']) >>> print(s) 0x0001ee00000d7 >>> s = Bits('0b1').join(['0b0']*5) >>> print(s.bin) 010101010
- Bits.pp(fmt: str | None = None, width: int = 120, sep: str = ' ', show_offset: bool = True, stream: TextIO = sys.stdout) None ¶
Pretty print the bitstring’s value according to the fmt. Either a single, or two comma separated formats can be specified, together with options for setting the maximum display width, the number of bits to display in each group, and the separator to print between groups.
>>> s = Bits('0b10111100101101001')*20 >>> s.pp(width=80) <Bits, fmt='bin8, hex', length=340 bits> [ 0: 10111100 10110100 11011110 01011010 01101111 00101101 : bc b4 de 5a 6f 2d 48: 00110111 10010110 10011011 11001011 01001101 11100101 : 37 96 9b cb 4d e5 96: 10100110 11110010 11010011 01111001 01101001 10111100 : a6 f2 d3 79 69 bc 144: 10110100 11011110 01011010 01101111 00101101 00110111 : b4 de 5a 6f 2d 37 192: 10010110 10011011 11001011 01001101 11100101 10100110 : 96 9b cb 4d e5 a6 240: 11110010 11010011 01111001 01101001 10111100 10110100 : f2 d3 79 69 bc b4 288: 11011110 01011010 01101111 00101101 00110111 10010110 : de 5a 6f 2d 37 96 ] + trailing_bits = 0x9
>>> s.pp('int20, hex', width=80, show_offset=False, sep=' / ') <Bits, fmt='int20, hex', length=340 bits> [ -275635 / -107921 / 185209 / 433099 : bcb4d / e5a6f / 2d379 / 69bcb 319066 / 455379 / 497307 / -215842 : 4de5a / 6f2d3 / 7969b / cb4de 370418 / -182378 / -410444 / -137818 : 5a6f2 / d3796 / 9bcb4 / de5a6 -53961 / -431684 / -307739 / -364755 : f2d37 / 969bc / b4de5 / a6f2d 227689 : 37969 ]
The available formats are any fixed-length dtypes, for example
'bin'
,'oct'
,'hex'
and'bytes'
together with types with explicit lengths such as'uint5'
and'float16'
. A bit length can be specified after the format (with an optional :) to give the number of bits represented by each group, otherwise the default is based on the format or formats selected.For the
'bytes'
format, characters from the ‘Latin Extended-A’ unicode block are used for non-ASCII and unprintable characters.If the bitstring cannot be represented in a format due to its length not being a multiple of the number of bits represented by each character then an
InterpretError
will be raised.An output stream can be specified. This should be an object with a
write
method and the default issys.stdout
.By default the output will have colours added in the terminal. This can be disabled - see
bitstring.options.no_color
for more information.
- Bits.rfind(bs: BitsType, start: int | None = None, end: int | None = None, bytealigned: bool | None = None) Tuple[int] | Tuple[()] ¶
Searches backwards for bs in the current bitstring and sets
pos
to the start of bs and returns it in a tuple if found, otherwise it returns an empty tuple.The reason for returning the bit position in a tuple is so that it evaluates as True even if the bit position is zero. This allows constructs such as
if s.rfind('0xb3'):
to work as expected.If bytealigned is
True
then it will look for bs only at byte aligned positions. start and end give the search range and default to0
andlen
respectively.Note that as it’s a reverse search it will start at end and finish at start.
>>> s = Bits('0o031544') >>> s.rfind('0b100') (15,) >>> s.rfind('0b100', end=17) (12,)
- Bits.split(delimiter: BitsType, start: int | None = None, end: int | None = None, count: int | None = None, bytealigned: bool | None = None) Iterable[Bits] ¶
Splits the bitstring into sections that start with delimiter. Returns a generator for bitstring objects.
The first item generated is always the bits before the first occurrence of delimiter (even if empty). A slice can be optionally specified with start and end, while count specifies the maximum number of items generated.
If bytealigned is
True
then the delimiter will only be found if it starts at a byte aligned position.>>> s = Bits('0x42423') >>> [bs.bin for bs in s.split('0x4')] ['', '01000', '01001000', '0100011']
- Bits.startswith(bs: BitsType, start: int | None = None, end: int | None = None) bool ¶
Returns
True
if the bitstring starts with the sub-string bs, otherwise returnsFalse
.A slice can be given using the start and end bit positions and defaults to the whole bitstring.
>>> s = BitArray('0xef133') >>> s.startswith('0b111011') True
- Bits.tobitarray() bitarray.bitarray ¶
Returns the bitstring as a
bitarray
object.Converts the bitstring to an equivalent
bitarray
object from thebitarray
package. This shouldn’t be confused with theBitArray
type provided in thebitstring
package - thebitarray
package is a separate third-party way of representing binary objects.Note that
BitStream
andConstBitStream
types that have a bit position do support this method but the bit position information will be lost.
- Bits.tobytes() bytes ¶
Returns the bitstring as a
bytes
object.The returned value will be padded at the end with between zero and seven
0
bits to make it byte aligned. This differs from using the plainbytes
property which will not pad with zero bits and instead raises an exception if the bitstring is not a whole number of bytes long.This method can also be used to output your bitstring to a file - just open a file in binary write mode and write the function’s output.
>>> s = Bits(bytes=b'hello') >>> s += '0b01' >>> s.tobytes() b'hello@'
This is equivalent to casting to a bytes object directly:
>>> bytes(s) b'hello@'
- Bits.tofile(f: BinaryIO) None ¶
Writes the bitstring to the file object f, which should have been opened in binary write mode.
The data written will be padded at the end with between zero and seven
0
bits to make it byte aligned.>>> f = open('newfile', 'wb') >>> Bits('0x1234').tofile(f)
- Bits.unpack(fmt: str | list[str | int], **kwargs) list[float | int | str | None | Bits] ¶
Interprets the whole bitstring according to the fmt string or iterable and returns a list of bitstring objects.
A dictionary or keyword arguments can also be provided. These will replace length identifiers in the format string.
fmt is an iterable or a string with comma separated tokens that describe how to interpret the next bits in the bitstring. See the Format tokens for details.
>>> s = Bits('int4=-1, 0b1110') >>> i, b = s.unpack('int:4, bin')
If a token doesn’t supply a length (as with
bin
above) then it will try to consume the rest of the bitstring. Only one such token is allowed.The
unpack
method is a natural complement of thepack
function.s = bitstring.pack('uint10, hex, int13, 0b11', 130, '3d', -23) a, b, c, d = s.unpack('uint10, hex, int13, bin2')
Properties¶
The many ways to interpret bitstrings can be accessed via properties.
These properties will be read-only for a Bits
object, but are also writable for derived mutable types such as BitArray
and BitStream
.
Properties can also have a length in bits appended to them to such as u8
or f64
(for the bytes
property the length is interpreted in bytes instead of bits).
These properties with lengths will cause an InterpretError
to be raised if the bitstring is not of the specified length.
This list isn’t exhaustive - see for example Exotic Floating Point Formats for information on bfloats and many 8-bit and smaller floating point formats. Also see Exponential-Golomb Codes for some interesting variable length integer formats.
Note that the bin
, oct
, hex
, int
, uint
and float
properties can all be shortened to their initial letter.
- Bits.bin: str¶
Property for the representation of the bitstring as a binary string. Can be shortened to just
b
.
- Bits.bool: bool¶
Property for representing the bitstring as a boolean (
True
orFalse
).If the bitstring is not a single bit then the getter will raise an
InterpretError
.
- Bits.bytes: bytes¶
Property representing the underlying byte data that contains the bitstring.
When used as a getter the bitstring must be a whole number of byte long or a
InterpretError
will be raised.An alternative is to use the
tobytes
method, which will pad with between zero and seven0
bits to make it byte aligned if needed.>>> s = Bits('0x12345678') >>> s.bytes b'\x124Vx'
- Bits.hex: str¶
Property representing the hexadecimal value of the bitstring. Can be shortened to just
h
.If the bitstring is not a multiple of four bits long then getting its hex value will raise an
InterpretError
.>>> s = Bits(bin='1111 0000') >>> s.hex 'f0'
- Bits.int: int¶
Property for the signed two’s complement integer representation of the bitstring. Can be shortened to just
i
.
- Bits.intbe: int¶
Property for the byte-wise big-endian signed two’s complement integer representation of the bitstring.
Only valid for whole-byte bitstrings, in which case it is equal to
s.int
, otherwise anInterpretError
is raised.
- Bits.intle: int¶
Property for the byte-wise little-endian signed two’s complement integer representation of the bitstring.
Only valid for whole-byte bitstring, in which case it is equal to
s[::-8].int
, i.e. the integer representation of the byte-reversed bitstring.
- Bits.intne: int¶
Property for the byte-wise native-endian signed two’s complement integer representation of the bitstring.
Only valid for whole-byte bitstrings, and will equal either the big-endian or the little-endian integer representation depending on the platform being used.
- Bits.float: float¶
- Bits.floatbe: float¶
Property for the floating point representation of the bitstring. Can be shortened to just
f
.The bitstring must be 16, 32 or 64 bits long to support the floating point interpretations, otherwise an
InterpretError
will be raised.If the underlying floating point methods on your machine are not IEEE 754 compliant then using the float interpretations is undefined (this is unlikely unless you’re on some very unusual hardware).
The
float
property is bit-wise big-endian, which as all floats must be whole-byte is exactly equivalent to the byte-wise big-endianfloatbe
.
- Bits.floatle: float¶
Property for the byte-wise little-endian floating point representation of the bitstring.
- Bits.floatne: float¶
Property for the byte-wise native-endian floating point representation of the bitstring.
- Bits.len: int¶
- Bits.length: int
Read-only property that give the length of the bitstring in bits (
len
andlength
are equivalent).Using the
len()
built-in function is preferred in almost all cases, but these properties are available for backward compatibility. The only occasion where the properties are needed is if a 32-bit build of Python is being used and you have a bitstring whose length doesn’t fit in a 32-bit unsigned integer. In that caselen(s)
may fail with anOverflowError
, whereass.len
will still work. With 64-bit Python the problem shouldn’t occur unless you have more than a couple of exabytes of data!
- Bits.oct: str¶
Property for the octal representation of the bitstring. Can be shortened to just
o
.If the bitstring is not a multiple of three bits long then getting its octal value will raise a
InterpretError
.>>> s = Bits('0b111101101') >>> s.oct '755' >>> s.oct = '01234567' >>> s.oct '01234567'
- Bits.uint: int¶
Property for the unsigned base-2 integer representation of the bitstring. Can be shortened to just
u
.
- Bits.uintbe: int¶
Property for the byte-wise big-endian unsigned base-2 integer representation of the bitstring.
- Bits.uintle: int¶
Property for the byte-wise little-endian unsigned base-2 integer representation of the bitstring.
- Bits.uintne: int¶
Property for the byte-wise native-endian unsigned base-2 integer representation of the bitstring.
Special Methods¶
- Bits.__add__(bs)¶
- Bits.__radd__(bs)¶
s1 + s2
Concatenate two bitstring objects and return the result. Either bitstring can be ‘auto’ initialised.
s = Bits(ue=132) + '0xff' s2 = '0b101' + s
- Bits.__and__(bs)¶
- Bits.__rand__(bs)¶
s1 & s2
Returns the bit-wise AND between two bitstrings, which must have the same length otherwise a
ValueError
is raised.>>> print(Bits('0x33') & '0x0f') 0x03
- Bits.__bool__()¶
if s:
Returns
False
if the bitstring is empty (has zero length), otherwise returnsTrue
.>>> bool(Bits()) False >>> bool(Bits('0b0000010000')) True >>> bool(Bits('0b0000000000')) True
- Bits.__contains__(bs)¶
bs in s
Returns
True
if bs can be found in the bitstring, otherwise returnsFalse
.Similar to using
find
, except that you are only told if it is found, and not where it was found.>>> '0b11' in Bits('0x06') True >>> '0b111' in Bits('0x06') False
- Bits.__copy__()¶
s2 = copy.copy(s1)
This allows the
copy
module to correctly copy bitstrings. Other equivalent methods are to initialise a new bitstring with the old one or to take a complete slice.>>> import copy >>> s = Bits('0o775') >>> s_copy1 = copy.copy(s) >>> s_copy2 = Bits(s) >>> s_copy3 = s[:] >>> s == s_copy1 == s_copy2 == s_copy3 True
- Bits.__eq__(bs)¶
s1 == s2
Compares two bitstring objects for equality, returning
True
if they have the same binary representation, otherwise returningFalse
.>>> Bits('0o7777') == '0xfff' True >>> a = Bits(uint=13, length=8) >>> b = Bits(uint=13, length=10) >>> a == b False
If you have a different criterion you wish to use then code it explicitly, for example
a.int == b.int
could be true even ifa == b
wasn’t (as they could be different lengths).
- Bits.__getitem__(key)¶
s[start:end:step]
Returns a slice of the bitstring.
The usual slice behaviour applies.
>>> s = Bits('0x0123456') >>> s[4:8] Bits('0x1') >>> s[1::8] # 1st, 9th, 17th and 25th bits Bits('0x3')
If a single element is asked for then either
True
orFalse
will be returned.>>> s[0] False >>> s[-1] True
- Bits.__hash__()¶
hash(s)
Returns an integer hash of the
Bits
.This method is not available for the
BitArray
orBitStream
classes, as only immutable objects should be hashed. You typically won’t need to call it directly, instead it is used for dictionary keys and in sets.
- Bits.__invert__()¶
~s
Returns the bitstring with every bit inverted, that is all zeros replaced with ones, and all ones replaced with zeros.
If the bitstring is empty then an
Error
will be raised.>>> s = ConstBitStream(‘0b1110010’) >>> print(~s) 0b0001101 >>> print(~s & s) 0b0000000 >>> ~~s == s True
- Bits.__len__()¶
len(s)
Returns the length of the bitstring in bits.
If you are using a 32-bit Python build (which is quite unlikely these days) it’s recommended that you use the
len
property rather than thelen
function because of the function will raise aOverflowError
if the length is greater thansys.maxsize
.
- Bits.__lshift__(n)¶
s << n
Returns the bitstring with its bits shifted n places to the left. The n right-most bits will become zeros.
>>> s = Bits('0xff') >>> s << 4 Bits('0xf0')
- Bits.__mul__(n)¶
- Bits.__rmul__(n)¶
s * n / n * s
Return bitstring consisting of n concatenations of another.
>>> a = Bits('0x34') >>> b = a*5 >>> print(b) 0x3434343434
- Bits.__ne__(bs)¶
s1 != s2
Compares two bitstring objects for inequality, returning
False
if they have the same binary representation, otherwise returningTrue
.
- Bits.__or__(bs)¶
- Bits.__ror__(bs)¶
s1 | s2
Returns the bit-wise OR between two bitstring, which must have the same length otherwise a
ValueError
is raised.>>> print(Bits('0x33') | '0x0f') 0x3f
- Bits.__repr__()¶
repr(s)
A representation of the bitstring that could be used to create it (which will often not be the form used to create it).
If the result is too long then it will be truncated with
...
and the length of the whole will be given.>>> Bits(‘0b11100011’) Bits(‘0xe3’)
- Bits.__rshift__(n)¶
s >> n
Returns the bitstring with its bits shifted n places to the right. The n left-most bits will become zeros.
>>> s = Bits(‘0xff’) >>> s >> 4 Bits(‘0x0f’)
- Bits.__str__()¶
print(s)
Used to print a representation of the bitstring, trying to be as brief as possible.
If the bitstring is a multiple of 4 bits long then hex will be used, otherwise either binary or a mix of hex and binary will be used. Very long strings will be truncated with
...
.>>> s = Bits('0b1')*7 >>> print(s) 0b1111111 >>> print(s + '0b1') 0xff
See also the
pp
method for ways to pretty-print the bitstring.
- Bits.__xor__(bs)¶
- Bits.__rxor__(bs)¶
s1 ^ s2
Returns the bit-wise XOR between two bitstrings, which must have the same length otherwise a
ValueError
is raised.>>> print(Bits('0x33') ^ '0x0f') 0x3c