16-bit signed binary to binary coded decimal(BCD) ascii

[Chris Liechti]

Peter Hansen <peter at engcorp.com> wrote in
news:3E4C2288.BC0DCE98 at engcorp.com: 

> Deirdre Hackett wrote:
>> 
>> I want to take in data in binary format from a magnetometer.
>> The magnetometer sends out the x,y,and z components of the magnetic
>> field. The order of output for the binary format is:
>> Xhi, Xlo, Yhi, Ylo, Zhi, Zlo.
>> The binary format is more efficient since only 7 bytes are
>> transmitted 
> 
> First thing that isn't clear: where do the *seven* bytes come from?
> You show only six items in that list.  Maybe it's not relevant, but
> when I read requirements docs I'm hyper-sensitive to anything that
> doesn't seem to fit...
> 
>> as opposed to BCD ascii where 28 bytes are transmitted.
> 
> How do you calculate this 28?
> 
>> After all that long-winded babble, my question is how can i convert 
>> the 16-bit binary information into BCD ascii, which is easier for
>> user interpretation.
> 
> Could you please explain by example exactly what you mean by "BCD
> ASCII"? This is not, at least in my experience, a completely
> well-defined technical term.  (Examples with actual binary would be
> best, to avoid confusion.) 
> 
> ASCII refers to a standard for encoding various characters in 7 bits,
> with the eighth bit set to zero on 8-bit machines.  BCD refers,
> usually, to a way of packing numeric information such that each nybble
> (four bits) of an eight-bit byte holds one decimal digit.  For
> example, the number 67 would be stored in a byte as the binary value
> 0110 0111 (six then seven), which has character value 103, and which
> in ASCII is the lowercase "g". 
> 
> Since two 8-bit bytes (e.g. Xhi and Xlo together) can represent values
> from 0 to 65535, which is five digits, it would take three bytes to
> hold the values when packed as BCD (with the upper nybble unused). 
> That doesn't jive with your "28 bytes" (or four per value) so I can't
> guess what you meant by the term.
> 
>> There must be a simple way to do or maybe even someone has written 
>> their own module to do it.
>> Please keep it simple.
> 
> Once you clarify, it will probably be very simple, so never fear! :-)

i'll try to guess anyway ;-)

maybe he meant something like that:

import struct
x,y,z = struct.unpack(">HHH", input_string)
print x,y,z

chris

-- 
Chris <cliechti at gmx.net>