How to convert signed to unsigned integer in python

Question

Let\'s say I have this number i = -6884376. How do I refer to it as to an unsigned variable? Something like (unsigned long)i in C.

Answer 1

You could use the struct Python built-in library:

Encode:

import struct

i = -6884376
print('{0:b}'.format(i))

packed = struct.pack('>l', i)  # Packing a long number.
unpacked = struct.unpack('>L', packed)[0]  # Unpacking a packed long number to unsigned long
print(unpacked)
print('{0:b}'.format(unpacked))

Out:

-11010010000110000011000
4288082920
11111111100101101111001111101000

---

Decode:

dec_pack = struct.pack('>L', unpacked)  # Packing an unsigned long number.
dec_unpack = struct.unpack('>l', dec_pack)[0]  # Unpacking a packed unsigned long number to long (revert action).
print(dec_unpack)

Out:

-6884376

---

[NOTE]:

• > is BigEndian operation.
• l is long.
• L is unsigned long.
• In amd64 architecture int and long are 32bit, So you could use i and I instead of l and L respectively.