Converting Byte Strings to Integers

In Python, converting a string of bytes into an integer can be achieved in multiple ways.

One solution is to use the Python 3.2 from_bytes method:

int.from_bytes(b'y\xcc\xa6\xbb', byteorder='big')

The int.from_bytes method requires two parameters: the byte string as an argument, followed by the endianness ('big' or 'little').

Alternatively, using the struct module offers another solution:

import struct
struct.unpack("
Here, struct.unpack expects two arguments: the format string '
It's important to note that these methods differ in performance. Benchmarking shows that the struct method is significantly faster than the from_bytes method, especially when the byte string is large. However, importing the struct module incurs an additional cost, making it less efficient for infrequent use.