Binary data with pyserial(python serial port)

Question

serial.write() method in pyserial seems to only send string data. I have arrays like [0xc0,0x04,0x00] and want to be able to send/receive them via the serial port? Are there any separate methods for raw I/O?

I think I might need to change the arrays to ['\xc0','\x04','\x00'], still, null character might pose a problem.

Answer 1

You need to convert your data to a string

"\xc0\x04\x00"

Null characters are not a problem in Python -- strings are not null-terminated the zero byte behaves just like another byte "\x00".

One way to do this:

>>> import array
>>> array.array('B', [0xc0, 0x04, 0x00]).tostring()
'\xc0\x04\x00'

Answer 2

An alternative method, without using the array module:

def a2s(arr):
    """ Array of integer byte values --> binary string
    """
    return ''.join(chr(b) for b in arr)