pythonbytebit

Using Python How can I read the bits in a byte?


I have a file where the first byte contains encoded information. In Matlab I can read the byte bit by bit with var = fread(file, 8, 'ubit1'), and then retrieve each bit by var(1), var(2), etc.

Is there any equivalent bit reader in python?


Solution

  • Read the bits from a file, low bits first.

    def bits(f):
        bytes = (ord(b) for b in f.read())
        for b in bytes:
            for i in xrange(8):
                yield (b >> i) & 1
    
    for b in bits(open('binary-file.bin', 'r')):
        print b