As`Kent Johnson pointed out, you don't need to convert anything to strings, etc. An integer _is_ a bit array, and individual bits can be tested using the bitwise operators. For your example, if A is an integer you can test bit 8 with: if A & (1 << 8): dosomething There is a simple example on the Python wiki at http://wiki.python.org/moin/BitArrays It uses an array of 32-bit integers as a bit array. The advantage of using 'bitarray' or one of the other packages on the Python Package Index is that they have implemented all of the slicing, etc. of Python lists, strings, etc. Using an array of 32 bit integers, you have to go to some trouble to slice out, say, bits 20 to 40. HTH, Gil
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