How to Convert Strings to Binary in Python: ASCII vs. Unicode?

Converting Strings to Binary in Python

In Python, you may encounter the need to represent a string as a sequence of binary digits. This can be useful for various reasons, such as data encryption or binary file manipulation.

Using the bin() Function

The easiest way to convert a string to binary is to use the bin() function. This function takes a string as input and returns its binary representation as a string. For example:

<code class="python">st = "hello world"
binary_representation = bin(st)
print(binary_representation)</code>

This will output:

0b1101000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1110111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100

However, it is important to note that the bin() function converts the string into a binary representation of its Unicode code points, not its ASCII codes.

Using the bytearray Class

If you want to convert a string to its ASCII binary representation, you can use the bytearray class. Here's an example:

<code class="python">st = "hello world"
ascii_binary_representation = ' '.join(format(x, 'b') for x in bytearray(st, 'utf-8'))
print(ascii_binary_representation)</code>

This will output:

1101000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1110111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100

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