binstr 1.1

Utility functions for strings of binary digits

Binstr - A collection of utility functions for creating and operating on
strings of binary digits. It is compatible with Python versions >2.6
including 3.x.
It is useful to use these functions to make small bugs in your code
easier to find since all inputs are checked thoroughly for errors
using assertions.


Includes:
int_to_b() - Convert a positive integer to a sting of binary
e.g. int_to_b(5) -> '00000101'
frac_to_b() - Convert a positive fraction to a string of binary
e.g. frac_to_b(0.5) -> '10000000'
str_to_b() - Convert an ASCII string of characters to a string of binary
e.g. str_to_b('abc') -> '011000010110001001100011'

b_land() - Perform a logical AND
b_lor() - Perform a logical OR
b_lxor() - Perform a logical XOR
b_lnand() - Perform a logical NAND
b_lnor() - Perform a logical NOR
b_lnxor() - Perform a logical NXOR

b_and() - Perform a bitwise AND
b_or() - Perform a bitwise OR
b_xor() - Perform a bitwise XOR
b_nand() - Perform a bitwise NAND
b_nor() - Perform a bitwise NOR
b_nxor() - Perform a bitwise NXOR
b_not() - Perform a bitwise NOT (inversion)

b_add() - Perform an ADD operation
b_mul() - Perform a MUL operation (multiply)

int_to_b() is a lot more flexible than the built in bin() function although
bin() is used internally. It allows you to force a width, change what bits are
chopped off, change the alignment and change the bit endianness.

The bit endianness is particularly useful for creating binary shuffles.
E.g. For creating the binary shuffle for a 256 sample FFT this can be done in a few lines.

from math import log
length = 256
shuffle = [int( int_to_b(i, width=int(log(length, 2)), endian='little') , 2)
for i in range(length)]


str_to_b() is also very flexible and can be used to simulate the voltage levels
in serial communication.
E.g. To simulate a standard RS232 port with a "8E1" configuration sending the
data "hello world" this can be done simply.

data = str_to_b('hello_world', endian='little', char_width=8, parity='sE', suffix='1')

Note that data is usually sent out LSB first. The char_width argument is shown
for clarity but is 8 by default. The suffix argument is used to add one stop bit.
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Installation
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extract the contents of the tarball:
cd to this directory (where README.txt and setup.py are) then run:

python setup.py install

Note: This may need to be run with root (admin) priviliges.