Bitwise XOR of hexadecimal numbers

Question

How can we XOR hexadecimal numbers in Python? For example, I want to XOR 'ABCD' and '12EF', the answer should be 'B922'.

I used the code below, but it gives the wrong results.

# xor two strings of different lengths
def strxor(a, b):
    if len(a) > len(b):
        return "".join(["%s" % (ord(x) ^ ord(y)) for (x, y) in zip(a[:len(b)], b)])
    else:
        return "".join(["%s" % (ord(x) ^ ord(y)) for (x, y) in zip(a, b[:len(a)])])

key = '12ef'
m1 = 'abcd'
print(strxor(key, m1))

Solution 1

Whoa. You're really over-complicating it by a very long distance. Try:

>>> print(hex(0x12ef ^ 0xabcd))
0xb922

You seem to be ignoring these handy facts, at least:

• Python has native support for hexadecimal integer literals, with the 0x prefix.
• "Hexadecimal" is just a presentation detail; the arithmetic is done in binary, and then the result is printed as hex.
• There is no connection between the format of the inputs (the hexadecimal literals) and the output, there is no such thing as a "hexadecimal number" in a Python variable.
• The hex() function can be used to convert any number into a hexadecimal string for display.

If you already have the numbers as strings, you can use the int() function to convert to numbers, by providing the expected base (16 for hexadecimal numbers):

>>> print(int("12ef", 16))
4874

So you can do two conversions, perform the XOR, and then convert back to hex:

>>> print(hex(int("12ef", 16) ^ int("abcd", 16)))
0xb922

Solution 2

If the two hex strings are the same length and you want a hex string output then you might try this.

def hexxor(a, b):    # xor two hex strings of the same length
    return "".join(["%x" % (int(x,16) ^ int(y,16)) for (x, y) in zip(a, b)])

Solution 3

here's a better function

def strxor(a, b):     # xor two strings of different lengths
    if len(a) > len(b):
        return "".join([chr(ord(x) ^ ord(y)) for (x, y) in zip(a[:len(b)], b)])
    else:
        return "".join([chr(ord(x) ^ ord(y)) for (x, y) in zip(a, b[:len(a)])])

Solution 4

If the strings are the same length, then I would go for '%x' % () of the built-in xor (^).

Examples -

>>>a = '290b6e3a'
>>>b = 'd6f491c5'
>>>'%x' % (int(a,16)^int(b,16))
'ffffffff'
>>>c = 'abcd'
>>>d = '12ef'
>>>'%x' % (int(a,16)^int(b,16))
'b922'

If the strings are not the same length, truncate the longer string to the length of the shorter using a slice longer = longer[:len(shorter)]

Solution 5

For performance purpose, here's a little code to benchmark these two alternatives:

#!/bin/python

def hexxorA(a, b):
    if len(a) > len(b):
        return "".join(["%x" % (int(x,16) ^ int(y,16)) for (x, y) in zip(a[:len(b)], b)])
    else:
        return "".join(["%x" % (int(x,16) ^ int(y,16)) for (x, y) in zip(a, b[:len(a)])])

def hexxorB(a, b):
    if len(a) > len(b):
        return '%x' % (int(a[:len(b)],16)^int(b,16))
    else:
        return '%x' % (int(a,16)^int(b[:len(a)],16))

def testA():
    strstr = hexxorA("b4affa21cbb744fa9d6e055a09b562b87205fe73cd502ee5b8677fcd17ad19fce0e0bba05b1315e03575fe2a783556063f07dcd0b9d15188cee8dd99660ee751", "5450ce618aae4547cadc4e42e7ed99438b2628ff15d47b20c5e968f086087d49ec04d6a1b175701a5e3f80c8831e6c627077f290c723f585af02e4c16122b7e2")
    if not int(strstr, 16) == int("e0ff3440411901bd57b24b18ee58fbfbf923d68cd88455c57d8e173d91a564b50ce46d01ea6665fa6b4a7ee2fb2b3a644f702e407ef2a40d61ea3958072c50b3", 16):
        raise KeyError
    return strstr

def testB():
    strstr = hexxorB("b4affa21cbb744fa9d6e055a09b562b87205fe73cd502ee5b8677fcd17ad19fce0e0bba05b1315e03575fe2a783556063f07dcd0b9d15188cee8dd99660ee751", "5450ce618aae4547cadc4e42e7ed99438b2628ff15d47b20c5e968f086087d49ec04d6a1b175701a5e3f80c8831e6c627077f290c723f585af02e4c16122b7e2")
    if not int(strstr, 16) == int("e0ff3440411901bd57b24b18ee58fbfbf923d68cd88455c57d8e173d91a564b50ce46d01ea6665fa6b4a7ee2fb2b3a644f702e407ef2a40d61ea3958072c50b3", 16):
        raise KeyError
    return strstr

if __name__ == '__main__':
    import timeit
    print("Time-it 100k iterations :")
    print("\thexxorA: ", end='')
    print(timeit.timeit("testA()", setup="from __main__ import testA", number=100000), end='s\n')
    print("\thexxorB: ", end='')
    print(timeit.timeit("testB()", setup="from __main__ import testB", number=100000), end='s\n')

Here are the results :

Time-it 100k iterations :
    hexxorA: 8.139988073991844s
    hexxorB: 0.240523161992314s

Seems like '%x' % (int(a,16)^int(b,16)) is faster then the zip version.

View more solutions

Comments

[eumiro]

Just a hint for zip: it does the stripping of the longer argument automatically. Anyway, @unwind is right with his short solution.

[jfs]

related: Simple Python Challenge: Fastest Bitwise XOR on Data Buffers

[Jon Clements]

Of course if @pratibha only has string literals then an alternative is hex(int('12ef', 16) ^ int('abcd', 16))

[DaV]

@unwind, the second number should be 0xabcd, hence the expected answer of 0xB922.

[Rahil Arora]

Looks like the exact code from one of the assignments in Crypto 1 course on Coursera. ;)