even better, thanks much for this. shawn
On 2/21/07, Kent Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Luke Paireepinart wrote: > > shawn bright wrote: > >> lo there all, > >> > >> i am reading a binary file with open('myfile', 'rb') > >> > >> then i do a read(1) to read one byte. cool so far. > >> > >> but how do i read the individual bits of a byte > >> > >> i mean if i have a = read(1) > >> > >> how do i know what the msb of a is ? > >> > >> i need to know because i have to see if the msb is set and i also need > >> to know the value of the next bit. > > Well, you know the value of the MSB is... > > 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 > > so if you divide the value by 128, and get a 1 and not a 0, then it's set. > > People commonly write functions to make binary lists from values. > > This is also a good application of bitwise operations. > > a & 128 will be 128 if the high bit in a is set, 0 if it is not. > > Kent > > _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor