bitstring 4.2.0b2

Simple construction, analysis and modification of binary data.

bitstring is a Python module to help make the creation and analysis of all types of bit-level binary data as simple and efficient as possible.

It has been actively maintained since 2006.

   

News

March 2024: bitstring 4.2.0b2 released. This is the final beta release before 4.2.

Install the beta with pip install bitstring==4.2.0b2, or use pip install bitstring for the latest stable version.

New in 4.2:

• Dropped support for Python 3.7. Minimum version is now 3.8.
• A new Dtype class can be optionally used to specify types.
• The bitstring.options object is now the preferred method for changing module options.
• New fromstring method as another way to create bitstrings from formatted strings.
• More types can now be pretty printed.
• A range of 8-bit, 6-bit and even 4-bit float formats added (beta):
• Performance improvements.

See the release notes for details. Please let me know if you encounter any problems.

Overview

• Efficiently store and manipulate binary data in idiomatic Python.
• Create bitstrings from hex, octal, binary, files, formatted strings, bytes, integers and floats of different endiannesses.
• Powerful binary packing and unpacking functions.
• Bit-level slicing, joining, searching, replacing and more.
• Create and manipulate arrays of fixed-length bitstrings.
• Read from and interpret bitstrings as streams of binary data.
• Rich API - chances are that whatever you want to do there's a simple and elegant way of doing it.
• Open source software, released under the MIT licence.

Documentation

Extensive documentation for the bitstring module is available. Some starting points are given below:

• Overview
• Quick Reference
• Full Reference

You can also try out the interactive walkthrough notebook on binder.

Release Notes

To see what been added, improved or fixed, and also to see what's coming in the next version, see the release notes.

Examples

Installation

$ pip install bitstring

Creation

 >>> from bitstring import Bits, BitArray, BitStream, pack
 >>> a = BitArray(bin='00101')
 >>> b = Bits(a_file_object)
 >>> c = BitArray('0xff, 0b101, 0o65, uint6=22')
 >>> d = pack('intle16, hex=a, 0b1', 100, a='0x34f')
 >>> e = pack('<16h', *range(16))

Different interpretations, slicing and concatenation

 >>> a = BitArray('0x3348')
 >>> a.hex, a.bin, a.uint, a.float, a.bytes
 ('3348', '0011001101001000', 13128, 0.2275390625, b'3H')
 >>> a[10:3:-1].bin
 '0101100'
 >>> '0b100' + 3*a
 BitArray('0x866906690669, 0b000')

Reading data sequentially

 >>> b = BitStream('0x160120f')
 >>> b.read(12).hex
 '160'
 >>> b.pos = 0
 >>> b.read('uint12')
 352
 >>> b.readlist('uint12, bin3')
 [288, '111']

Searching, inserting and deleting

 >>> c = BitArray('0b00010010010010001111')   # c.hex == '0x1248f'
 >>> c.find('0x48')
 (8,)
 >>> c.replace('0b001', '0xabc')
 >>> c.insert('0b0000', pos=3)
 >>> del c[12:16]

Arrays of fixed-length formats

 >>> from bitstring import Array
 >>> a = Array('uint7', [9, 100, 3, 1])
 >>> a.data
 BitArray('0x1390181')
 >>> a[::2] *= 5
 >>> a
 Array('uint7', [45, 100, 15, 1])

Credits

Created in 2006 to help with ad hoc parsing and creation of compressed video files. Maintained and expanded ever since as it became unexpectedly popular. Thanks to all those who have contributed ideas and code (and bug reports) over the years.

_{Copyright (c) 2006 - 2024 Scott Griffiths}