How to Convert a String to Binary in Python?

The binary is a base-2 number system that represents data using only two digits, typically 0 and 1. It is used in computers and other electronic devices to store and transmit information. We will use below methods to convert a string to binary.

Method 1: Using the bin() function

To convert a string to binary in Python, use the built-in bin() function. This function takes an integer or a string as an argument and returns its binary representation as a string prefixed with "0b".

str = "Hello, World!"
binary = ''.join(format(ord(i), '08b') for i in str)
print(binary)

Output:

01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00101100 00100000 01010111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100 00100001

Method 2: Using the bytearray() function

To convert a string to binary in Python is to use the bytearray() function. This function takes a string as an argument and returns a bytearray object that represents the string as a sequence of bytes. Each byte is represented as an integer between 0 and 255.

str = "Hello, World!"
binary = ''.join(format(byte, '08b') for byte in bytearray(str, encoding='utf-8'))
print(binary)

Output:

01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00101100 00100000 01010111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100 00100001

Method 3: Using the struct.pack() function

The struct module in Python provides a powerful set of functions to convert between binary data and Python objects. The pack() function in this module can be used to convert a string to binary. This function takes a format string and one or more arguments and returns a string containing the binary representation of the arguments.

import struct

str = "Hello, World!"
binary = ''.join(format(byte, '08b') for byte in struct.pack('!{}s'.format(len(str)), str.encode()))
print(binary)

Output:

01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00101100 00100000 01010111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100 00100001

Method 4: Using the ord() function and bitwise operations

To convert a string to binary in Python is to use the ord() function and bitwise operations. This method involves converting each character in the string to its ASCII value using the ord() function, and then using bitwise operations to obtain its binary representation.

str = "Hello, World!"
binary = ''.join(format(ord(i), '08b') for i in str)
print(binary)

Output:

01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00101100 00100000 01010111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100 00100001