The binascii Module

The binascii module, shown in Example 4-26, contains support functions for a number of encoding modules, including base64, binhex, and uu.

In 2.0 and newer, it also allows you to convert binary data to and from hexadecimal strings.

Example 4-26. Using the binascii Module

File: binascii-example-1.py

import binascii

text = "hello, mrs teal"

data = binascii.b2a_base64(text)
text = binascii.a2b_base64(data)
print text, "<=>", repr(data)

data = binascii.b2a_uu(text)
text = binascii.a2b_uu(data)
print text, "<=>", repr(data)

data = binascii.b2a_hqx(text)
text = binascii.a2b_hqx(data)[0]
print text, "<=>", repr(data)

# 2.0 and newer
data = binascii.b2a_hex(text)
text = binascii.a2b_hex(data)
print text, "<=>", repr(data)

hello, mrs teal <=> 'aGVsbG8sIG1ycyB0ZWFs12'
hello, mrs teal <=> '/:&5L;&\L(&UR 'D'9XE'mX)'ebFb"dC@&X'
hello, mrs teal <=> '68656c6c6f2c206d7273207465616c'