Python: Choose number of bits to represent binary number

Question

I am curious as to how I can change the number of bits to represent a binary number. For example, say I want express decimal 1 to binary. I use:

bin(1) and get 0b1.

How can I get the return to say 0b01 or 0b001 or 0b0001 etc?

ekhumoro · Accepted Answer · 2020-02-13 15:53:41Z

13

Use the Format String Syntax:

>>> format(1, '#04b')
'0b01'
>>> format(1, '#05b')
'0b001'
>>> format(1, '#06b')
'0b0001'

edited Feb 13, 2020 at 15:53

answered Dec 3, 2012 at 2:40

ekhumoro

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Comments

Jesse the Game · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-03 02:27:17Z

3

You can use str.zfill to pad the binary part:

def padded_bin(i, width):
    s = bin(i)
    return s[:2] + s[2:].zfill(width)

answered Dec 3, 2012 at 2:27

Jesse the Game

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dandelion · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-03 02:27:00Z

0

I don't believe there's a builtin way to do this. However, since bin just returns a string, you could write a wrapper function which modifies the string to have the right number of bits:

def binbits(x, n):
    """Return binary representation of x with at least n bits"""
    bits = bin(x).split('b')[1]

    if len(bits) < n:
        return '0b' + '0' * (n - len(bits)) + bits
#

answered Dec 3, 2012 at 2:27

dandelion

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