How to convert a string of bytes into an int?

I use the following function to convert data between int, hex and bytes.

def bytes2int(str):
 return int(str.encode('hex'), 16)

def bytes2hex(str):
 return '0x'+str.encode('hex')

def int2bytes(i):
 h = int2hex(i)
 return hex2bytes(h)

def int2hex(i):
 return hex(i)

def hex2int(h):
 if len(h) > 1 and h[0:2] == '0x':
  h = h[2:]

 if len(h) % 2:
  h = "0" + h

 return int(h, 16)

def hex2bytes(h):
 if len(h) > 1 and h[0:2] == '0x':
  h = h[2:]

 if len(h) % 2:
  h = "0" + h

 return h.decode('hex')

Source: http://opentechnotes.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/convert-values-to-from-integer-hex.html

You can also use the struct module to do this:

>>> struct.unpack("<L", "y\xcc\xa6\xbb")[0]
3148270713L

As Greg said, you can use struct if you are dealing with binary values, but if you just have a "hex number" but in byte format you might want to just convert it like:

s = 'y\xcc\xa6\xbb'
num = int(s.encode('hex'), 16)

...this is the same as:

num = struct.unpack(">L", s)[0]

...except it'll work for any number of bytes.

In Python 3.2 and later, use

>>> int.from_bytes(b'y\xcc\xa6\xbb', byteorder='big')
2043455163

or

>>> int.from_bytes(b'y\xcc\xa6\xbb', byteorder='little')
3148270713

according to the endianness of your byte-string.

This also works for bytestring-integers of arbitrary length, and for two's-complement signed integers by specifying signed=True. See the docs for from_bytes.