how to do bitwise exclusive or of two strings in python?

python string bitwise-operators
Hick picture Hick · Apr 10, 2010 · Viewed 113.4k times · Source

I would like to perform a bitwise exclusive or of two strings in python, but xor of strings are not allowed in python. How can I do it ?

Answer

Mark Byers picture Mark Byers · Apr 10, 2010

You can convert the characters to integers and xor those instead:

l = [ord(a) ^ ord(b) for a,b in zip(s1,s2)]

Here's an updated function in case you need a string as a result of the XOR:

def sxor(s1,s2):    
    # convert strings to a list of character pair tuples
    # go through each tuple, converting them to ASCII code (ord)
    # perform exclusive or on the ASCII code
    # then convert the result back to ASCII (chr)
    # merge the resulting array of characters as a string
    return ''.join(chr(ord(a) ^ ord(b)) for a,b in zip(s1,s2))

See it working online: ideone

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