[Tutor] How to convert hex representation of char? (Challenge part 8)

[Kent Johnson]

Pieter Lust wrote:
> Alan G wrote:
>  > '\x14' is the actual non printable charactewrs. If it were printable
>  > you
>  > would see its printed representation, because it isn't Pyhon showsw
>  > you
>  > the hex code as an escaped character but it is the character.
>  >
> 
> Thanks for the input. I'm sorry, my question was not clear enough.
> 
> The problem is that (to stick with the example) '\x14' is not the 
> character 0x14, but a string of length 4. It consists of the characters 
> backslash, 'x', '1' and '4'. (I verified the output of len()).
> What I want to do is make Python believe that that string of length 4 is 
> actually a string of length 1 that contains character 0x14. Any help on 
> how to achieve that is appreciated.

One way is to paste the string into a program; when Python sees '\x14' it creates a string of length 1:

  >>> len('\x14')
1

Alternately you can use the 'string_escape' codec to convert the string:
  >>> s=r'\x14'
  >>> len(s)
4
  >>> t=s.decode('string_escape')
  >>> t
'\x14'
  >>> len(t)
1

Kent