How do you read a structure in python?

Question

Numpy can be used to read/write binary data. You just need to define a custom np.dtype instance that defines the memory layout of your c-struct.

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Functions and Exceptions¶
Format Strings¶
Byte Order, Size, and Alignment¶
Format Characters¶
How do you use structures in Python?
How do you read a struct in Python C?
How do you define a structure in Python?
Can we use structures in Python?

For example, here is some C++ code defining a struct (should work just as well for C structs, though I'm not a C expert):

struct MyStruct {
    uint16_t FieldA;
    uint16_t pad16[3];
    uint32_t FieldB;
    uint32_t pad32[2];
    char     FieldC[4];
    uint64_t FieldD;
    uint64_t FieldE;
};

void write_struct(const std::string& fname, MyStruct h) {
    // This function serializes a MyStruct instance and
    // writes the binary data to disk.
    std::ofstream ofp(fname, std::ios::out | std::ios::binary);
    ofp.write(reinterpret_cast(&h), sizeof(h));

}

Based on the advice I found at stackoverflow.com/a/5397638, I've included some padding in the struct (the pad16 and pad32 fields) so that serialization will happen in a more predictable way. I think that this is a C++ thing; it might not be necessary when using plain ol' C structs.

Now, in python, we create a numpy.dtype object describing the memory-layout of MyStruct:

import numpy as np

my_struct_dtype =  np.dtype([
    ("FieldA"            , np.uint16  ,       ),
    ("pad16"             , np.uint16  , (3,)  ),
    ("FieldB"            , np.uint32          ),
    ("pad32"             , np.uint32  , (2,)  ),
    ("FieldC"            , np.byte    , (4,)  ),
    ("FieldD"            , np.uint64          ),
    ("FieldE"            , np.uint64          ),
])

Then use numpy's fromfile to read the binary file where you've saved your c-struct:

# read data
struct_data = np.fromfile(fpath, dtype=my_struct_dtype, count=1)[0]

FieldA         = struct_data["FieldA"]
FieldB         = struct_data["FieldB"]
FieldC         = struct_data["FieldC"]
FieldD         = struct_data["FieldD"]
FieldE         = struct_data["FieldE"]

if FieldA != expected_value_A:
    raise ValueError("Bad FieldA, got %d" % FieldA)
if FieldB != expected_value_B:
    raise ValueError("Bad FieldB, got %d" % FieldB)
if FieldC.tobytes() != b"expc":
    raise ValueError("Bad FieldC, got %s" % FieldC.tobytes().decode())
...

The count=1 argument in the above call np.fromfile(..., count=1) is so that the returned array will have only one element; this means "read the first struct instance from the file". Note that I am indexing [0] to get that element out of the array.

If you have appended the data from many c-structs to the same file, you can use fromfile(..., count=n) to read n struct instances into a numpy array of shape (n,). Setting count=-1, which is the default for the np.fromfile and np.frombuffer functions, means "read all of the data", resulting in a 1-dimensional array of shape (number_of_struct_instances,).

You can also use the offset keyword argument to np.fromfile to control where in the file the data read will begin.

To conclude, here are some numpy functions that will be useful once your custom dtype has been defined:

Reading binary data as a numpy array:
- np.frombuffer(bytes_data, dtype=...): Interpret the given binary data (e.g. a python bytes instance) as a numpy array of the given dtype. You can define a custom dtype that describes the memory layout of your c struct.
- np.fromfile(filename, dtype=...): Read binary data from filename. Should be the same result as np.frombuffer(open(filename, "rb").read(), dtype=...).
Writing a numpy array as binary data:
- ndarray.tobytes(): Construct a python bytes instance containing raw data from the given numpy array. If the array's data has dtype corresponding to a c-struct, then the bytes coming from ndarray.tobytes can be deserialized by c/c++ and interpreted as an (array of) instances of that c-struct.
- ndarray.tofile(filename): Binary data from the array is written to filename. This data could then be deserialized by c/c++. Equivalent to open("filename", "wb").write(a.tobytes()).

Source code: Lib/struct.py

This module performs conversions between Python values and C structs represented as Python bytes objects. This can be used in handling binary data stored in files or from network connections, among other sources. It uses Format Strings as compact descriptions of the layout of the C structs and the intended conversion to/from Python values.

Note

By default, the result of packing a given C struct includes pad bytes in order to maintain proper alignment for the C types involved; similarly, alignment is taken into account when unpacking. This behavior is chosen so that the bytes of a packed struct correspond exactly to the layout in memory of the corresponding C struct. To handle platform-independent data formats or omit implicit pad bytes, use standard size and alignment instead of native size and alignment: see Byte Order, Size, and Alignment for details.

Several struct functions (and methods of Struct) take a buffer argument. This refers to objects that implement the Buffer Protocol and provide either a readable or read-writable buffer. The most common types used for that purpose are bytes and bytearray, but many other types that can be viewed as an array of bytes implement the buffer protocol, so that they can be read/filled without additional copying from a bytes object.

Functions and Exceptions¶

The module defines the following exception and functions:

exception struct.error¶

Exception raised on various occasions; argument is a string describing what is wrong.

struct.pack(format, v1, v2, ...)¶

Return a bytes object containing the values v1, v2, … packed according to the format string format. The arguments must match the values required by the format exactly.

struct.pack_into(format, buffer, offset, v1, v2, ...)¶

Pack the values v1, v2, … according to the format string format and write the packed bytes into the writable buffer buffer starting at position offset. Note that offset is a required argument.

struct.unpack(format, buffer)¶

Unpack from the buffer buffer (presumably packed by pack(format, ...)) according to the format string format. The result is a tuple even if it contains exactly one item. The buffer’s size in bytes must match the size required by the format, as reflected by calcsize().

struct.unpack_from(format, /, buffer, offset=0)¶

Unpack from buffer starting at position offset, according to the format string format. The result is a tuple even if it contains exactly one item. The buffer’s size in bytes, starting at position offset, must be at least the size required by the format, as reflected by calcsize().

struct.iter_unpack(format, buffer)¶

Iteratively unpack from the buffer buffer according to the format string format. This function returns an iterator which will read equally sized chunks from the buffer until all its contents have been consumed. The buffer’s size in bytes must be a multiple of the size required by the format, as reflected by calcsize().

Each iteration yields a tuple as specified by the format string.

New in version 3.4.

struct.calcsize(format)¶

Return the size of the struct (and hence of the bytes object produced by pack(format, ...)) corresponding to the format string format.

Format Strings¶

Format strings are the mechanism used to specify the expected layout when packing and unpacking data. They are built up from Format Characters, which specify the type of data being packed/unpacked. In addition, there are special characters for controlling the Byte Order, Size, and Alignment.

Byte Order, Size, and Alignment¶

By default, C types are represented in the machine’s native format and byte order, and properly aligned by skipping pad bytes if necessary (according to the rules used by the C compiler).

Alternatively, the first character of the format string can be used to indicate the byte order, size and alignment of the packed data, according to the following table:

Character	Byte order	Size	Alignment
`@`	native	native	native
`=`	native	standard	none
`<`	little-endian	standard	none
`>`	big-endian	standard	none
`!`	network (= big-endian)	standard	none

If the first character is not one of these, '@' is assumed.

Native byte order is big-endian or little-endian, depending on the host system. For example, Intel x86 and AMD64 (x86-64) are little-endian; IBM z and most legacy architectures are big-endian; and ARM, RISC-V and IBM Power feature switchable endianness (bi-endian, though the former two are nearly always little-endian in practice). Use sys.byteorder to check the endianness of your system.

Native size and alignment are determined using the C compiler’s sizeof expression. This is always combined with native byte order.

Standard size depends only on the format character; see the table in the Format Characters section.

Note the difference between '@' and '=': both use native byte order, but the size and alignment of the latter is standardized.

The form '!' represents the network byte order which is always big-endian as defined in IETF RFC 1700.

There is no way to indicate non-native byte order (force byte-swapping); use the appropriate choice of '<' or '>'.

Notes:

Padding is only automatically added between successive structure members. No padding is added at the beginning or the end of the encoded struct.
No padding is added when using non-native size and alignment, e.g. with ‘<’, ‘>’, ‘=’, and ‘!’.
To align the end of a structure to the alignment requirement of a particular type, end the format with the code for that type with a repeat count of zero. See Examples.

Format Characters¶

Format characters have the following meaning; the conversion between C and Python values should be obvious given their types. The ‘Standard size’ column refers to the size of the packed value in bytes when using standard size; that is, when the format string starts with one of '<', '>', '!' or '='. When using native size, the size of the packed value is platform-dependent.

Format	C Type	Python type	Standard size	Notes
`x`	pad byte	no value
`c`	char	bytes of length 1	1
`b`	signed char	integer	1	(1), (2)
`B`	unsigned char	integer	1	(2)
`?`	_Bool	bool	1	(1)
`h`	short	integer	2	(2)
`H`	unsigned short	integer	2	(2)
`i`	int	integer	4	(2)
`I`	unsigned int	integer	4	(2)
`l`	long	integer	4	(2)
`L`	unsigned long	integer	4	(2)
`q`	long long	integer	8	(2)
`Q`	unsigned long long	integer	8	(2)
`n`	`ssize_t`	integer		(3)
`N`	`size_t`	integer		(3)
`e`	(6)	float	2	(4)
`f`	float	float	4	(4)
`d`	double	float	8	(4)
`s`	char[]	bytes
`p`	char[]	bytes
`P`	void*	integer		(5)

Changed in version 3.3: Added support for the 'n' and 'N' formats.

Changed in version 3.6: Added support for the 'e' format.

Notes:

The '?' conversion code corresponds to the _Bool type defined by C99. If this type is not available, it is simulated using a char. In standard mode, it is always represented by one byte.
When attempting to pack a non-integer using any of the integer conversion codes, if the non-integer has a __index__() method then that method is called to convert the argument to an integer before packing.
Changed in version 3.2: Added use of the __index__() method for non-integers.
The 'n' and 'N' conversion codes are only available for the native size (selected as the default or with the '@' byte order character). For the standard size, you can use whichever of the other integer formats fits your application.
For the 'f', 'd' and 'e' conversion codes, the packed representation uses the IEEE 754 binary32, binary64 or binary16 format (for 'f', 'd' or 'e' respectively), regardless of the floating-point format used by the platform.
The 'P' format character is only available for the native byte ordering (selected as the default or with the '@' byte order character). The byte order character '=' chooses to use little- or big-endian ordering based on the host system. The struct module does not interpret this as native ordering, so the 'P' format is not available.
The IEEE 754 binary16 “half precision” type was introduced in the 2008 revision of the IEEE 754 standard. It has a sign bit, a 5-bit exponent and 11-bit precision (with 10 bits explicitly stored), and can represent numbers between approximately 6.1e-05 and 6.5e+04 at full precision. This type is not widely supported by C compilers: on a typical machine, an unsigned short can be used for storage, but not for math operations. See the Wikipedia page on the half-precision floating-point format for more information.

A format character may be preceded by an integral repeat count. For example, the format string '4h' means exactly the same as 'hhhh'.

Whitespace characters between formats are ignored; a count and its format must not contain whitespace though.

For the 's' format character, the count is interpreted as the length of the bytes, not a repeat count like for the other format characters; for example, '10s' means a single 10-byte string, while '10c' means 10 characters. If a count is not given, it defaults to 1. For packing, the string is truncated or padded with null bytes as appropriate to make it fit. For unpacking, the resulting bytes object always has exactly the specified number of bytes. As a special case, '0s' means a single, empty string (while '0c' means 0 characters).

When packing a value x using one of the integer formats ('b', 'B', 'h', 'H', 'i', 'I', 'l', 'L', 'q', 'Q'), if x is outside the valid range for that format then struct.error is raised.

Changed in version 3.1: Previously, some of the integer formats wrapped out-of-range values and raised DeprecationWarning instead of struct.error.

The 'p' format character encodes a “Pascal string”, meaning a short variable-length string stored in a fixed number of bytes, given by the count. The first byte stored is the length of the string, or 255, whichever is smaller. The bytes of the string follow. If the string passed in to pack() is too long (longer than the count minus 1), only the leading count-1 bytes of the string are stored. If the string is shorter than count-1, it is padded with null bytes so that exactly count bytes in all are used. Note that for unpack(), the 'p' format character consumes count bytes, but that the string returned can never contain more than 255 bytes.

For the '?' format character, the return value is either True or False. When packing, the truth value of the argument object is used. Either 0 or 1 in the native or standard bool representation will be packed, and any non-zero value will be True when unpacking.

Examples¶

Note

All examples assume a native byte order, size, and alignment with a big-endian machine.

A basic example of packing/unpacking three integers:

>>> from struct import *
>>> pack('hhl', 1, 2, 3)
b'\x00\x01\x00\x02\x00\x00\x00\x03'
>>> unpack('hhl', b'\x00\x01\x00\x02\x00\x00\x00\x03')
(1, 2, 3)
>>> calcsize('hhl')
8

Unpacked fields can be named by assigning them to variables or by wrapping the result in a named tuple:

>>> record = b'raymond   \x32\x12\x08\x01\x08'
>>> name, serialnum, school, gradelevel = unpack('<10sHHb', record)

>>> from collections import namedtuple
>>> Student = namedtuple('Student', 'name serialnum school gradelevel')
>>> Student._make(unpack('<10sHHb', record))
Student(name=b'raymond   ', serialnum=4658, school=264, gradelevel=8)

The ordering of format characters may have an impact on size since the padding needed to satisfy alignment requirements is different:

>>> pack('ci', b'*', 0x12131415)
b'*\x00\x00\x00\x12\x13\x14\x15'
>>> pack('ic', 0x12131415, b'*')
b'\x12\x13\x14\x15*'
>>> calcsize('ci')
8
>>> calcsize('ic')
5

The following format 'llh0l' specifies two pad bytes at the end, assuming longs are aligned on 4-byte boundaries:

>>> pack('llh0l', 1, 2, 3)
b'\x00\x00\x00\x01\x00\x00\x00\x02\x00\x03\x00\x00'

This only works when native size and alignment are in effect; standard size and alignment does not enforce any alignment.

Classes¶

The struct module also defines the following type:

class struct.Struct(format)¶

Return a new Struct object which writes and reads binary data according to the format string format. Creating a Struct object once and calling its methods is more efficient than calling the struct functions with the same format since the format string only needs to be compiled once.

Note

The compiled versions of the most recent format strings passed to Struct and the module-level functions are cached, so programs that use only a few format strings needn’t worry about reusing a single Struct instance.

Compiled Struct objects support the following methods and attributes:

pack(v1, v2, ...)¶

Identical to the pack() function, using the compiled format. (len(result) will equal size.)

pack_into(buffer, offset, v1, v2, ...)¶

Identical to the pack_into() function, using the compiled format.

unpack(buffer)¶

Identical to the unpack() function, using the compiled format. The buffer’s size in bytes must equal size.

unpack_from(buffer, offset=0)¶

Identical to the unpack_from() function, using the compiled format. The buffer’s size in bytes, starting at position offset, must be at least size.

iter_unpack(buffer)¶

Identical to the iter_unpack() function, using the compiled format. The buffer’s size in bytes must be a multiple of size.

New in version 3.4.

format¶

The format string used to construct this Struct object.

Changed in version 3.7: The format string type is now str instead of bytes.

size¶

The calculated size of the struct (and hence of the bytes object produced by the pack() method) corresponding to format.

How do you use structures in Python?

The module struct is used to convert the native data types of Python into string of bytes and vice versa. We don't have to install it. It's a built-in module available in Python3. The struct module is related to the C languages.

How do you read a struct in Python C?

Writing a numpy array as binary data:.

ndarray. tobytes() : Construct a python bytes instance containing raw data from the given numpy array. If the array's data has dtype corresponding to a c-struct, then the bytes coming from ndarray. ... .

ndarray. tofile(filename) : Binary data from the array is written to filename ..

How do you define a structure in Python?

Structs are defined using a mini language based on format strings that allows you to define the arrangement of various C data types like char , int , and long as well as their unsigned variants. Serialized structs are seldom used to represent data objects meant to be handled purely inside Python code.

Can we use structures in Python?

This module performs conversions between Python values and C structs represented as Python bytes objects. Format strings are the mechanism used to specify the expected layout when packing and unpacking data. Module struct is available in Python 3.

programming python Python struct Python unpack bytearray struct.pack python Python typedef struct Struct Python example

How do you read a structure in python?

Functions and Exceptions¶

Format Strings¶

Byte Order, Size, and Alignment¶

Format Characters¶

Examples¶

Classes¶

How do you use structures in Python?

How do you read a struct in Python C?

How do you define a structure in Python?

Can we use structures in Python?

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