string.atoi() doesn't do negative base16 - why??

[Steven Adams]

Hi,

my quick hack for going back and forth between binary and base 10, 16 is
backfiring a bit..

I can form the values as a string, BUT, string.atoi() can't convert negative
base hexadecimal strings to integers.

does that make sense?
e.g
>>> import string
>>> hex(-20)
'0xffffffec'
>>> string.atoi('0xffffffec',16)
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "<pyshell#28>", line 1, in ?
    string.atoi('0xffffffec',16)
ValueError: atoi() literal too large: 0xffffffec

why is this?

because after looking at it for too long - I found exec() would do the trick
e.g.
>>> myHexString='0xffffffec'
>>> exec('l='+myHexString)

why does this work, but the conversion by string.atoi() not?? curiouser and
curiouser

confused,

Steven