Converting string into hex representation

Question

I am looking for a good way to convert a string into a hex string.

For example:

Here is what I have come up with:

def to_hex(input_str):
    new_str = '0x'

    for char in input_str:
        new_str += '{:02X}'.format(ord(char))

    return new_str

It seems like there is probably a better way to do this that I haven't been able to find yet.

the `\x` isn't really part of the string. it's to show the value of the raw bytes — Chad S., Jan 07 '16 at 17:37

score 6 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 07 '16 at 17:38

6

You want the binascii module.

>>> binascii.hexlify('\x01\x25\x89')
'012589'
>>> binascii.hexlify('\x25\x01\x00\x89')
'25010089'

answered Jan 07 '16 at 17:38

Chris

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 07 '16 at 17:39

5

Just encode to hex:

In [5]: s= "\x01\x25\x89"

In [6]: s.encode("hex")
Out[6]: '012589'

In [7]: s = "\x25\x01\x00\x89"
In [8]: s.encode("hex")
Out[8]: '25010089'

answered Jan 07 '16 at 17:39

This works well for python 2 and I like that it doesn't require a module. The answer by [Chris](http://stackoverflow.com/a/34661666/4538876) will work for python 2 and 3 though. – JakeGreen Jan 07 '16 at 18:02
@JakeGreen, neither would actually work for python3 without an encode, if you wanted a solution for both 2 and 3 `codecs.encode(s, "hex")` but again you will have to encode s – Padraic Cunningham Jan 07 '16 at 18:05
you are right. I was thinking more about my specific use case in my previous comment and I never mentioned what my use case is. I have been using `struct` to pack some data which returns type bytes in python 3 and not a string, so binascii works for my use case in both versions of python. Sorry about that. Thanks for the good info though. – JakeGreen Jan 07 '16 at 18:36

2 Answers2