How do you express binary literals in Python?

user_92 0
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How do you express an integer as a binary number with Python literals?

I was easily able to find the answer for hex:

>>> 0x12AF
4783
>>> 0x100
256

and octal:

>>> 01267
695
>>> 0100
64

How do you use literals to express binary in Python?

Summary of Answers

  • Python 2.5 and earlier: can express binary using int('01010101111',2) but not with a literal.
  • Python 2.5 and earlier: there is no way to express binary literals.
  • Python 2.6 beta: You can do like so: 0b1100111 or 0B1100111.
  • Python 2.6 beta: will also allow 0o27 or 0O27 (second character is the letter O) to represent an octal.
  • Python 3.0 beta: Same as 2.6, but will no longer allow the older 027 syntax for octals.
literals integer binary syntax python
8 Answers

For reference—future Python possibilities:
Starting with Python 2.6 you can express binary literals using the prefix 0b or 0B:

>>> 0b101111
47

You can also use the new bin function to get the binary representation of a number:

>>> bin(173)
'0b10101101'

Development version of the documentation: What's New in Python 2.6

Andreas_Thomas_15310 
>>> print int('01010101111',2)
687
>>> print int('11111111',2)
255

Another way.

user_20897400

I've tried this in Python 3.6.9

Convert Binary to Decimal

>>> 0b101111
47

>>> int('101111',2)
47

Convert Decimal to binary

>>> bin(47)
'0b101111'

Place a 0 as the second parameter python assumes it as decimal.

>>> int('101111',0)
101111
user_124156370

Another good method to get an integer representation from binary is to use eval()

Like so:

def getInt(binNum = 0):
    return eval(eval('0b' + str(n)))

I guess this is a way to do it too. I hope this is a satisfactory answer :D

user_140332840

As far as I can tell Python, up through 2.5, only supports hexadecimal & octal literals. I did find some discussions about adding binary to future versions but nothing definite.

Mark_Biek_3050

I am pretty sure this is one of the things due to change in Python 3.0 with perhaps bin() to go with hex() and oct().

EDIT: lbrandy's answer is correct in all cases.

user_2690
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