Binary number manipulation

[Matthew A. Berglund]

Hello All!

I am very new to python so I am working on some ass-umptions which may be incorrect (please forgive me).

I am working on a problem that requires me to take 2 decimal integers, each of which represents half of a word. I need to slap these things together and get out another decimal integer.
A couple of questions:
1. Is there a way to typecast a variable as a binary?
2. If 1 is no, does that mean that I need to do all the manipulation in some icky string format and then go back?

I do see the bit-wise operations available and this looks like I need to simply perform these on my integers? Can it really be that simple?

Thanks,
Matt

[Irmen de Jong]

Re: Binary number manipulation

Matthew A. Berglund wrote:
[color=blue]
> I am working on a problem that requires me to take 2 decimal integers, each
> of which represents half of a word. I need to slap these things together
> and get out another decimal integer.[/color]
[...][color=blue]
> I do see the bit-wise operations available and this looks like I need to
> simply perform these on my integers? Can it really be that simple?[/color]

Probably. Consider the following (typed at the interactive prompt):
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> a=0x1234
>>> b=0xabcd
>>> i=a<<16 | b
>>> print i[/color][/color][/color]
305441741[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> print hex(i)[/color][/color][/color]
0x1234abcd

This example assumes that both words are 16 bits.
There are some signed/unsinged issues, be warned.


--Irmen