Hi John thanks for the tips I had a bit of a typo in my first post
time = struct.unpack(">steps",c) should read somthing more like time = struct.unpack(">steps+f",c) adding the f to tell structs it is in float format the string substitution seems like it would work but now I cant figure out how I would add the f on the end also this still requires me to reassign 6 to steps isnt this already done here ? >>> s = L[:4] >>> s ('\x00', '\x00', '\x00', '\x06') >>> a = string.join( s , '') >>> steps = struct.unpack (">l" , a) >>> steps (6,) what I would like to do in the end is take the format formula. steps = int 4 value = int 4 time = float 4 * steps and have a python script that will spit out the ascii contents, without me having to assign 6 to steps as that number will change from file to file. _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor