The bytearray() method returns a bytearray object which is an array of the given bytes.
Example
prime_numbers = [2, 3, 5, 7]
# convert list to bytearray
byte_array = bytearray(prime_numbers)
print(byte_array)
# Output: bytearray(b'\x02\x03\x05\x07')
bytearray() Syntax
The syntax of bytearray() method is:
bytearray([source[, encoding[, errors]]])
bytearray() method returns a bytearray object (i.e. array of bytes) which is mutable (can be modified) sequence of integers in the range 0 <= x < 256.
If you want the immutable version, use the bytes() method.
bytearray() Parameters
bytearray() takes three optional parameters:
- source (Optional) - source to initialize the array of bytes.
- encoding (Optional) - if the source is a string, the encoding of the string.
- errors (Optional) - if the source is a string, the action to take when the encoding conversion fails (Read more: String encoding)
The source parameter can be used to initialize the byte array in the following ways:
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| String | Converts the string to bytes using str.encode() Must also provide encoding and optionally errors |
| Integer | Creates an array of provided size, all initialized to null |
| Object | A read-only buffer of the object will be used to initialize the byte array |
| Iterable | Creates an array of size equal to the iterable count and initialized to the iterable elements Must be iterable of integers between 0 <= x < 256 |
| No source (arguments) | Creates an array of size 0. |
bytearray() Return Value
The bytearray() method returns an array of bytes of the given size and initialization values.
Example 1: Array of bytes from a string
string = "Python is interesting."
# string with encoding 'utf-8'
arr = bytearray(string, 'utf-8')
print(arr)
Output
bytearray(b'Python is interesting.')
Example 2: Array of bytes of given integer size
size = 5
arr = bytearray(size)
print(arr)
Output
bytearray(b'\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00')
Example 3: Array of bytes from an iterable list
rList = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
arr = bytearray(rList)
print(arr)
Output
bytearray(b'\x01\x02\x03\x04\x05')