how to convert mac address to decimal in python

Question

I want to write a function in python that take mac address as argument and convert that mac address to decimal form.please provide solution supported in python2

I have written a code

def mac_to_int(macaddress): 
   i=0  
   mac=list(macaddress)
   mac_int=0;   
 for i in range(len(macaddress)):
   mac_int=mac_int<<8
   mac_int+=mac[i]

return mac_int

actually in 3rd line where i want to copy content of macaddress to mac i just wanted to know that i have written correct way or not

Answer 1

It is as simple as this line:

mac_int = int(mac_str.translate(None, ":.- "), 16)

This first removes the possible byte separator characters (":", ".", "-" or " " but you can add more if you want) and then parses the string as integer with base 16 (hexadecimal).

---

As it has been asked for, the other way round could use e.g. str.format to convert the integer into a hexadecimal string and then just insert the colons back into it:

mac_hex = "{:012x}".format(mac_int)
mac_str = ":".join(mac_hex[i:i+2] for i in range(0, len(mac_hex), 2))

Answer 2

the following function will do the trick

import re

def mac_to_int(mac):
    res = re.match('^((?:(?:[0-9a-f]{2}):){5}[0-9a-f]{2})$', mac.lower())
    if res is None:
        raise ValueError('invalid mac address')
    return int(res.group(0).replace(':', ''), 16)