How to Convert 24-byte byte array to 16-byte byte array in Python?

Question

I have a byte array b_a . len(b_a) returns 24. But I want to make b_a 's length 16 without data loss. Is there any way of that?

Answer 1

Depends how do you want to achieve that. If its length is 24, then there is 24 elements in it, obviously. If you want to make it 16, you will have to remove 8 elements.

You can do this by:

Slicing:

b_a = b_a[:16]

or

b_a = b_a[8:]

or any combination:

b_a = b_a[2:18]

Or you could .pop() items:

b_a.pop(). # do this 8 times

or

b_a.pop(some_index). # do this 8 times

Answer 2

You can also part bytearray into slices like strings. So len(mybytearray[0:16])

But this will not work well. Because in different encoding sets (utf-8, ascii...), characters occupy different amounts of number. That's why we need to know what you encoded your bytearray with.

It may still work for you:

mybyte = bytearray("uğurcanveözlemkardeşler", 'utf-8')
mybyte16 = mybyte[0:16]
mybyte16