Best way to convert sequence of bytes to long integer

[Stefan Behnel]

Steven D'Aprano, 20.01.2010 08:36:
> I have a byte string (Python 2.x string), e.g.:
> 
> s = "g%$f yg\n1\05"
> assert len(s) == 10
> 
> I wish to convert it to a long integer, treating it as base-256. 
> Currently I'm using:
> 
> def makelong(s):
>     n = 0
>     for c in s:
>         n *= 256
>         n += ord(c)
>     return n
> 
> 
> which gives:
> 
>>>> makelong(s)
> 487088900085839492165893L
> 
> 
> Is this the best way, or have I missed some standard library function?

Have you checked if the struct module offers anything here?

Stefan