Fast reading and unpacking of binary data (struct module)

[Daniel Platz]

Hi,

I have a Python newbie question about reading data from a binary file.
I have an huge binary file from an external program. I want to read
and process the data in this file in a reasonable time. It turns out
that the reading of the data itself and the processing do not need
most of the time. However, when using the read(bytes) method Python
returns a string representing the binary information in hex. This
string I have to "cast/translate" into a number (in my case a signed
short). For this I am using the method struct.unpack from the struct
module. This unpacking part of the program takes by far the most time.
Is there a way to speed this up or to do it the unpacking more
cleverly than with the struct module?

Thanks in advance.

With kind regards,

Daniel