bitlist

Minimal Python library for working with bit vectors natively.

Purpose

This library allows programmers to work with a native representation of bit vectors within Python.

Package Installation and Usage

The package is available on PyPI:

python -m pip install bitlist

The library can be imported in the usual way:

import bitlist
from bitlist import bitlist

A basic example of usage (a bitwise addition function) is provided below:

from bitlist import bitlist

def add(x, y):
    """Bitwise addition algorithm."""
    r = bitlist(0)

    # Upper bound is not inclusive.
    # Use negative indices for big-endian interface.
    carry = 0
    for i in range(1, max(len(x), len(y)) + 1):
        r[-i] = (x[-i] ^ y[-i]) ^ carry
        carry = (x[-i] & y[-i]) | (x[-i] & carry) | (y[-i] & carry)
    r[-(max(len(x), len(y)) + 1)] = carry

    return r

Documentation

The documentation can be generated automatically from the source files using Sphinx:

cd docs
python -m pip install -r requirements.txt
sphinx-apidoc -f -E --templatedir=_templates -o _source .. ../setup.py && make html

Testing and Conventions

All unit tests are executed and their coverage is measured when using nose (see setup.cfg for configuration details):

python -m pip install nose coverage
nosetests --cover-erase

The subset of the unit tests included in the module itself can be executed using doctest:

python bitlist/bitlist.py -v

Style conventions are enforced using Pylint:

python -m pip install pylint
pylint bitlist test/test_bitlist

Contributions

In order to contribute to the source code, open an issue or submit a pull request on the GitHub page for this library.

Versioning

Beginning with version 0.3.0, the version number format for this library and the changes to the library associated with version number increments conform with Semantic Versioning 2.0.0.