codecs_to_hex.py

#1/usr/bin/env python

# this is from The Python
# Standard Library by example
# ISBN13: 9780321767349

import binascii


def to_hex(t, nbytes):
    """Format text t as a sequence of nbyte long values
    seperated by spaces.
    """

    chars_per_item = nbytes * 2
    hex_version = binascii.hexlify(t)
    return ' '.join(
        hex_version[start:start + chars_per_item]
        for start in xrange(0, len(hex_version), chars_per_item)
    )

if __name__ == '__main__':
    print to_hex('abcdef', 1)
    print to_hex('abcdef', 2)