A Python library to manage binary data as bitstreams.
Bitstream three main features:
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It is easy to use since the bitstream abstraction is simple.
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It works seamlessly at the bit and byte level.
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It supports Python, NumPy and user-defined types.
See the documentation Overview section for more details.
Make sure that Python 2.7 or Python 3.6 to 3.9 are installed and that pip, NumPy and a C compiler are available, then install bitstream with
$ pip install bitstream
For more details, refer to the documentation.
First, the mandatory "Hello World!" example:
>>> from bitstream import BitStream
>>> BitStream(b"Hello World!")
010010000110010101101100011011000110111100100000010101110110111101110010011011000110010000100001
The basic API is made of three methods only:
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stream = BitStream()to create an empty stream. -
stream.write(data, type)to write datadataof typetype. -
data = stream.read(type, n)to readnitems of typetype.
For example:
>>> stream = BitStream() # <empty>
>>> stream.write(True, bool) # 1
>>> stream.write(False, bool) # 10
>>> from numpy import int8
>>> stream.write(-128, int8) # 1010000000
>>> stream.write(b"AB", bytes) # 10100000000100000101000010
>>> stream.read(bool, 2) # 100000000100000101000010
[True, False]
>>> stream.read(int8, 1) # 0100000101000010
array([-128], dtype=int8)
>>> stream.read(bytes, 2) # <empty>
b'AB'
Refer to the documentation Overview section for more elementary examples.
Refer to Contributing in the documentation.
If you need some support with bitstream and you haven't found a solution to your problem in the documentation, please open an issue in the GitHub issue tracker.
If you don't feel like you problem belongs there, you can send me an e-mail instead; please include "bitstream" in the subject. You will find my e-mail address in my GitHub profile.
In both cases, you will need to #to GitHub (and join GitHub if you don't already have an account).
Bitstream is open source software released under the MIT license.
Copyright (c) 2012-2023 Sébastien Boisgérault