Search code examples
pythonstructdata-conversionpack

Python struct with large list

Im trying to convert my very long integer list i a binary array (list) Im using struct.pack() and it works well but i think this is very ugly:

buf = pack(">IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII", *data)

I need to do this because my list has 113 Items with large and small values. Is there a option to use pack() with a long list without having 113 "I"'s?

Solution

  • If you multiply a string with an integer, the string is repeated that many times. For instance:

    >>> 'foo'*3
'foofoofoo'

    So you can use:

    buf = pack(">" + "I"*len(data), *data)

    This is more elegant and safe as well: in case the number of objects changes, this will simply keep working.