convert char to byte representation

[Philipp H. Mohr]

Hello,

I am trying to xor the byte representation of every char in a string with
its predecessor. But I don't know how to convert a char into its byte
representation. This is to calculate the nmea checksum for gps data.

e.g. everything between $ and * needs to be xor:
$GPGSV,3,1,10,06,79,187,39,30,59,098,40,25,51,287,00,05,25,103,44*
to get the checksum.


Thank you for you help.

Phil

 

[Larry Bates]

ord(c) gives you decimal representation of a character.

-Larry Bates

 

[Scott David Daniels]

I am trying to xor the byte representation of every char in a string with
its predecessor. But I don't know how to convert a char into its byte
representation.

ord('a') == 97; chr(97) == 'a'; "ord" gives you the value of the byte.

e.g. everything between $ and * needs to be xor:
$GPGSV,3,1,10,06,79,187,39,30,59,098,40,25,51,287,00,05,25,103,44*
to get the checksum.

Probably you want a byte-array here, rather than going char-by-char.
Try:
import array
base = ('$GPGSV,3,1,10,06,79,187,39,30,59,098,'
'40,25,51,287,00,05,25,103,44*')
bytes = array.array('b', base[1 : -1])
for i in reversed(range(len(bytes))):
bytes ^= bytes[i-1]
result = bytes.tostring()

--Scott David Daniels
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Grant Edwards]

ord(c) gives you decimal representation of a character.

While ord(c) is what the OP needs, it doesn't give a decimal
represention -- which I guess would be a string like "65" for
the ASCII characer "A". What ord() gives you is an integer
object with the value of the character [which the hardware
stores in binary on all of the platforms I'm aware of].

 

[Rick Wotnaz]

I am trying to xor the byte representation of every char in a
string with its predecessor. But I don't know how to convert a
char into its byte representation.

ord('a') == 97; chr(97) == 'a'; "ord" gives you the value of the
byte.

e.g. everything between $ and * needs to be xor:
$GPGSV,3,1,10,06,79,187,39,30,59,098,40,25,51,287,00,05,25,
103,44*
to get the checksum.

Probably you want a byte-array here, rather than going
char-by-char. Try:
import array
base = ('$GPGSV,3,1,10,06,79,187,39,30,59,098,'
'40,25,51,287,00,05,25,103,44*')
bytes = array.array('b', base[1 : -1])
for i in reversed(range(len(bytes))):
bytes ^= bytes[i-1]
result = bytes.tostring()

--Scott David Daniels
(e-mail address removed)

What is the byte representation of 287?

 

[Peter Otten]

I am trying to xor the byte representation of every char in a string with
its predecessor. But I don't know how to convert a char into its byte
representation.

ord('a') == 97; chr(97) == 'a'; "ord" gives you the value of the byte.

e.g. everything between $ and * needs to be xor:
$GPGSV,3,1,10,06,79,187,39,30,59,098,40,25,51,287,00,05,25,103,44*
to get the checksum.

Probably you want a byte-array here, rather than going char-by-char.
Try:
import array
base = ('$GPGSV,3,1,10,06,79,187,39,30,59,098,'
'40,25,51,287,00,05,25,103,44*')
bytes = array.array('b', base[1 : -1])
for i in reversed(range(len(bytes))):
bytes ^= bytes[i-1]
result = bytes.tostring()

Seems like the OP doesn't need what he asked for. The simpler

def checksum(s):
assert s[0] == "$"
assert s[-1] == "*"
result = 0
for c in s[1:-1]:
result ^= ord(c)
return result

should do.

Peter

 

[Larry Bates]

I've always read it written that the number that is returned by
ord(c) is the "decimal" (not hex, not octal) representation of
the ASCII/UNICODE character that is stored in memory location
pointed to by variable c. While the result is an integer (as
it couldn't really be anything else), I believe that most
character charts list the number that ord() returns as the
"decimal representation" of that character (as they normally
also show the octal and hex values as well).

Probably an "old school" answer on my part.

-Larry Bates

ord(c) gives you decimal representation of a character.

While ord(c) is what the OP needs, it doesn't give a decimal
represention -- which I guess would be a string like "65" for
the ASCII characer "A". What ord() gives you is an integer
object with the value of the character [which the hardware
stores in binary on all of the platforms I'm aware of].

 

[Mike Meyer]

[Format recovered from top posting.]

I am trying to xor the byte representation of every char in a string with
its predecessor. But I don't know how to convert a char into its byte
representation. This is to calculate the nmea checksum for gps data.

ord(c) gives you decimal representation of a character.

While ord(c) is what the OP needs, it doesn't give a decimal
represention -- which I guess would be a string like "65" for
the ASCII characer "A". What ord() gives you is an integer
object with the value of the character [which the hardware
stores in binary on all of the platforms I'm aware of].

I've always read it written that the number that is returned by
ord(c) is the "decimal" (not hex, not octal) representation of
the ASCII/UNICODE character that is stored in memory location
pointed to by variable c. While the result is an integer (as
it couldn't really be anything else), I believe that most
character charts list the number that ord() returns as the
"decimal representation" of that character (as they normally
also show the octal and hex values as well).

The value returned by ord is a *number*. That number has a decimal
representation. It also has a hex representation and an octal
representation. These are all strings, and they all represent the same
number. You can't print a number - you can only print characters. So
Python (indeed, most languages) translate the number into a string of
characters that represent the number, using the decimal
representation. You can use the hex and oct builtins to ask for the
hex and octal representations of that number and print those strings
if you want.

Probably an "old school" answer on my part.

The decimal representation of ' ' is '32'. Python doesn't think that
that's what ord(' ') returns:
False

So I'd say it was "wrong" rather than old school.

True

Of course you can't read a number any more than you can write one, so
Python kindly translates strings representing numbers into numbers
when itt reads them. This process is often referred to as "reading a
number", but what's actually read is characters.

<mike