Using Python How can I read the bits in a byte?

Question

I have a file where the first byte contains encoded information. In Matlab I can read the byte bit by bit with var = fread(file, 8, \'ubit1\'), and then retrie

Answer 1

To read a byte from a file: bytestring = open(filename, 'rb').read(1). Note: the file is opened in the binary mode.

To get bits, convert the bytestring into an integer: byte = bytestring[0] (Python 3) or byte = ord(bytestring[0]) (Python 2) and extract the desired bit: (byte >> i) & 1:

>>> for i in range(8): (b'a'[0] >> i) & 1
... 
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
>>> bin(b'a'[0])
'0b1100001'