Converting Hex to RGB value in Python

Question

Working off Jeremy\'s response here: Converting hex color to RGB and vice-versa I was able to get a python program to convert preset colour hex codes (example #B4FBB8), howe

Answer 1

All the answers I've seen involve manipulation of a hex string. In my view, I'd prefer to work with encoded integers and RGB triples themselves, not just strings. This has the benefit of not requiring that a color be represented in hexadecimal-- it could be in octal, binary, decimal, what have you.

Converting an RGB triple to an integer is easy.

rgb = (0xc4, 0xfb, 0xa1) # (196, 251, 161)

def rgb2int(r,g,b):
    return (256**2)*r + 256*g + b

c = rgb2int(*rgb) # 12909473
print(hex(c))     # '0xc4fba1'

We need a little more math for the opposite direction. I've lifted the following from my answer to a similar Math exchange question.

c = 0xc4fba1

def int2rgb(n):
    b = n % 256
    g = int( ((n-b)/256) % 256 )      # always an integer
    r = int( ((n-b)/256**2) - g/256 ) # ditto
    return (r,g,b)

print(tuple(map(hex, int2rgb(c)))) # ('0xc4', '0xfb', '0xa1')

With this approach, you can convert to and from strings with ease.