5 Best Ways to Convert Python Byte Array to Hex String

Converting a byte array to a hex string in Python is a common task that may be needed for data serialization, logging, or for cryptographic purposes. The goal is to take an input, such as b'\\x01\\x02\\x0F', and convert it into a string representation of hexadecimal characters, like “01020F”. Different methods can be used to achieve this task and in this article, we will explore five such ways.

Method 1: Using the binascii.hexlify() Function

The binascii.hexlify() function is a useful method for converting a byte array to a hex string. It takes a binary array as input and returns the hex representation as a byte string. To get a standard string, you can decode the result.

Here’s an example:

import binascii

byte_array = b'\x01\x02\x0F'
hex_string = binascii.hexlify(byte_array).decode('utf-8')

print(hex_string)

Output:

This code snippet imports the binascii module and uses the hexlify() method to convert the given byte array to a hex string. The decode('utf-8') call is used to convert the result from a byte string to a standard string.

Method 2: Using the bytes.hex() Method

The bytes.hex() method is a straightforward approach to obtaining a hex string directly from a bytes object without importing any additional modules.

Here’s an example:

byte_array = b'\x01\x02\x0F'
hex_string = byte_array.hex()

print(hex_string)

Output:

This code snippet demonstrates the use of the built-in hex() method on a byte array, which yields the hexadecimal string representation directly. This is a concise and efficient way to perform the conversion.

Method 3: Using List Comprehension with format()

By combining list comprehension with the format() function, we can manually convert each byte in the array to its hex representation and then join them together into a string.

Here’s an example:

byte_array = b'\x01\x02\x0F'
hex_string = ''.join(format(byte, '02x') for byte in byte_array)

print(hex_string)

Output:

Here we iterate over each byte in the array and use the format() function with the ’02x’ format specifier to convert each byte to a two-digit hexadecimal number, using list comprehension for a concise conversion process. The string method join() is then used to concatenate the individual hex digits into a full string.

Method 4: Using the bytearray.hex() Method

If working with a mutable byte array, the bytearray class also has a hex() method similar to the bytes object, allowing for an easy conversion to a hex string.

Here’s an example:

byte_array = bytearray(b'\x01\x02\x0F')
hex_string = byte_array.hex()

print(hex_string)

Output:

This snippet uses a bytearray object instead of a bytes object. The hex() method works the same way as in method 2, providing a simple and quick conversion to a hex string.

Bonus One-Liner Method 5: Using f-string with a List Comprehension

Python 3.6 introduced f-strings, which can be utilized for inline formatting. By combining f-strings with a list comprehension, we can obtain a hex string succinctly.

Here’s an example:

byte_array = b'\x01\x02\x0F'
hex_string = ''.join(f'{byte:02x}' for byte in byte_array)

print(hex_string)

Output:

This code snippet creates a hex string by using an f-string within a list comprehension to format each byte as a two-digit hexadecimal number. This approach is efficient and takes advantage of Python’s modern string formatting capabilities.

Summary/Discussion

• Method 1: binascii.hexlify(). Straightforward and reliable. Requires an import. Returns bytes which need decoding.
• Method 2: bytes.hex(). Very concise. No imports required. Specific to immutable bytes objects.
• Method 3: List Comprehension with format(). More verbose but highly readable. Offers flexibility and control over formatting.
• Method 4: bytearray.hex(). Useful for mutable byte arrays. As easy as Method 2 but for a different data structure.
• Bonus Method 5: f-string with List Comprehension. Modern and succinct. Requires Python 3.6 or higher. Great for inline formatting.