[FIXED] Converting int to bytes in Python 3

Issue

I was trying to build this bytes object in Python 3:

b'3\r\n'

so I tried the obvious (for me), and found a weird behaviour:

>>> bytes(3) + b'\r\n'
b'\x00\x00\x00\r\n'

Apparently:

>>> bytes(10)
b'\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00'

I've been unable to see any pointers on why the bytes conversion works this way reading the documentation. However, I did find some surprise messages in this Python issue about adding format to bytes (see also Python 3 bytes formatting):

http://bugs.python.org/issue3982

This interacts even more poorly with oddities like bytes(int) returning zeroes now

and:

It would be much more convenient for me if bytes(int) returned the ASCIIfication of that int; but honestly, even an error would be better than this behavior. (If I wanted this behavior - which I never have - I'd rather it be a classmethod, invoked like "bytes.zeroes(n)".)

Can someone explain me where this behaviour comes from?

Solution

Python 3.5+ introduces %-interpolation (printf-style formatting) for bytes:

>>> b'%d\r\n' % 3
b'3\r\n'

See PEP 0461 -- Adding % formatting to bytes and bytearray.

On earlier versions, you could use str and .encode('ascii') the result:

>>> s = '%d\r\n' % 3
>>> s.encode('ascii')
b'3\r\n'

Note: It is different from what int.to_bytes produces:

>>> n = 3
>>> n.to_bytes((n.bit_length() + 7) // 8, 'big') or b'\0'
b'\x03'
>>> b'3' == b'\x33' != '\x03'
True

Answered By - jfs