Question

I need to convert an ASCII string into a list of bits and vice versa:

str = "Hi" -> [0,1,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,1,1,0,1,0,0,1]

[0,1,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,1,1,0,1,0,0,1] -> "Hi"

Answer 1

There are probably faster ways to do this, but using no extra modules:

def tobits(s):
    result = []
    for c in s:
        bits = bin(ord(c))[2:]
        bits = '00000000'[len(bits):] + bits
        result.extend([int(b) for b in bits])
    return result

def frombits(bits):
    chars = []
    for b in range(len(bits) / 8):
        byte = bits[b*8:(b+1)*8]
        chars.append(chr(int(''.join([str(bit) for bit in byte]), 2)))
    return ''.join(chars)