Python: how to bitmask and compare mac address?

Question

I'm new to Python.

The following line of code extract dst mac and src mac from a Ethernet packet.

dst, src, _eth_type = struct.unpack_from('!6s6sH', buffer(msg.data), 0)

As we know, mac address is of 6-byte. What I want to archive is to compare if the first 5 bytes of dst/src mac addresses equal. How to write python code for that?

Answer 1

Use slice notation to extract subsequences from sequences like lists or strings. Comparing the first five bytes/characters of your dst and src strings is trivial:

dst[:5] == src[:5]