> Is there a name for this type of number? I'm assuming the \x means > it's hex, but then you have things like \x00h, and \x007p^.
It's a sequence of bytes and you've asked Python to print its string representation. So where the bytes are unprintable ascii codes it shows you the hex, thus: '\x05\x01\x03\x02\x05\xaf\xce\x04\x00 Those are all single bytes in hex h that byte has the ascii value for the letter 'h' (ie. its 104 in decimal) \x00\x00\x00\x01\x007\x00\x01\x00\x01\x00 More bytes as hex 7 p ^ The three ascii characters '7','p','^' (or 55,112,94 in decimal) \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x01\x00 More hex bytes 7 '7' again \x00\x04\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 more bytes as hex... you get the idea? However that doesn't mean that those are really what the data represents. The first 4 bytes could be a 32 bit integer, or a short floating point value. Similary the 7p^ sequence could be three bytes from within an integer too. You really need to know whats being thrown at you down the socket otherwise you have very little hope of accurately decoding it. And to decode it you need to use the struct module. HTH, Alan G Author of the Learn to Program web tutor http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
