Convert a string of binary characters to the ASCII equivalents

Question

Take a string of binary characters separated by a space, and convert it to an ASCII string.

For example...

1001000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1010111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100

Would convert to...

Hello World

The binary string will be stored in a variable called s.

This is a code-golf challenge so the shortest solution wins.

Answer 1

Ruby, 36 32

s.split.map{|x|x.to_i(2).chr}*""

Or 31

s.gsub(/\w+ ?/){$&.to_i(2).chr}

Optimizations thanks to Chron

Answer 2

JavaScript (ES6) 49 55 56 64

s.replace(/\d+./g,x=>String.fromCharCode('0b'+x))

Edit Accepting @bebe suggestion - thanks
Edit2 Didn't know about binary numeric literal - thanks @kapep
Edit3 Wow 6 not 4 bytes saved thx @ETHproductions

Explanation as requested in comments

String.replace can take 2 arguments:

• regular expression /\d+./g : one or more digits followed by one different character - the g flag specify to search the pattern more than once
• a function, here specified in arrow format, where the argument (x) wil be the found string (the sequence of digits eventually followed by a space) and the value of the function is what is replaced (in this case, the single character from the code).

It's worth noting that the at the end of the string the regexp matches the sequence of digits without a trailing space, in this case the dot matches the last digit. Try '123'.match(/(\d+)./) to verify.

(Still) one of the more verbose pieces of javascript ever...
(Assignment to string s not counted)

var s='1001000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1010111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100'
var x=
s.replace(/\d+./g,x=>String.fromCharCode('0b'+x))

console.log(x)

Answer 3

Bash+common linux utils, 25 bytes

dc<<<2i$s[Pz0\<m]dsmx|rev

dc explanation

• push 2 to the stack; pop and use as input radix
• push input string to stack (all values at once)
• Define recursive macro m to:
  • pop, then print value as ASCII
  • push stack depth to stack
  • push 0 to stack
  • pop top 2 stack values; compare and call m macro if stack non-empty
• duplicate top of stack (macro definition)
• pop and save macro to m register
• pop and execute macro

Because we push the whole binary string to the stack first, when we pop each value, we end up with the string reversed. So we use the rev utility to correct that.

Example usage:

$ s="1001000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1010111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100"
$ dc<<<2i$s[Pz0\<m]dsmx|rev
Hello World
$ 

Answer 4

PowerShell, 49

-join(-split$s|%{[char][convert]::toint32($_,2)})

EDIT: Didn't see the other PowerShell answer. But there is essentially only one way of solving this.

Answer 5

C - 57 43 38/31

38 Byte version:

for(int*x=s;putchar(strtol(x,&x,2)););

Or only 31 bytes if s is a pointer:

while(putchar(strtol(s,&s,2)));

I don't think this is exactly how for and while loop are supposed to be used... but it works.

Answer 6

Powershell (52 49)

-join(-split$s|%{[char][convert]::ToInt16($_,2)})

Simple loop over binary string in $s. Having to include the [convert] kills my score though.

EDIT: There really is only one way of pulling this off in Powershell, wowie. Joey and I both got pretty much the same answer working independently!

Input:

1001000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1010111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100

Output:

Hello World

Answer 7

Pyth, 12

smCv+"0b"dPZ

Note that s is not a legal variable in Pyth, so I used Z instead.

Explanation:

        print(
s             sum(
m                 map(lambda d:
C                     chr(
v                         eval(
+"0b"d                         "0b"+d)),
P                     split(
Z                           Z))))

Example:

=Z"<the binary string from above>"smCv+"0b"dPZ
Hello World

Answer 8

x86 machine code on DOS - 22 bytes

00000000  30 d2 b4 08 cd 21 2c 30  72 06 d0 e2 08 c2 eb f2  |0....!,0r.......|
00000010  b4 02 cd 21 eb ea                                 |...!..|

Since there are no real string variables in machine code (and in particular, no variables named "s") I settled for stdin as input.

NASM input:

    org 100h

section .text

start:
    xor dl,dl
loop:
    mov ah,8
    int 21h
    sub al,'0'
    jb print
    shl dl,1
    or dl,al
    jmp loop
print:
    mov ah,2
    int 21h
    jmp start

Answer 9

Mathematica, 52 bytes

Ah, Mathematica's lovely function names

f=FromCharacterCode[#~FromDigits~2&/@StringSplit@#]&

Answer 10

Perl 33 32

Edit: Updated solution, 32.

say$s=~s/\d+ ?/chr oct"0b$&"/rge

Previous solution (33):

$_=$s;say map{chr oct"0b$_"}split

or

say map{chr oct"0b$_"}split/ /,$s

Test:

perl -E '$s="1001000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1010111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100";$_=$s;say map{chr oct"0b$_"}split'

Answer 11

J (23)

u:;(#.@:("."0))&.>cut s

Test:

   s=:'1001000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1010111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100'
   u:;(#.@:("."0))&.>cut s
Hello World

Explanation:

                  cut s    NB. split S on spaces
   (          )&.>         NB. for each element
        ("."0)             NB. evaluate each character
      @:                   NB. and
    #.                     NB. convert bitstring to number
  ;                        NB. unbox each number
u:                         NB. convert to ASCII

Answer 12

Python shell  44  40 chars

''.join(chr(int(x,2))for x in s.split())

Thanks for the help Griffin.

Answer 13

Golfscript - 21

' '/{1/{~}%2base}%''+

You can test it here.

Answer 14

APL (15)

⎕UCS{2⊥⍎¨⍕⍵}¨⍎s

Test:

      s←'1001000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1010111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100'
      ⎕UCS{2⊥⍎¨⍕⍵}¨⍎s
Hello World

Explanation:

• ⍎s: evaluate s, turning it into an array of integers. Arrays are written as numbers separated by spaces, so this splits s.
• {...}¨: for each element:
  • ⍕⍵: turn the number back into a string
  • ⍎¨: evaluate each individual digit, giving a bitstring
  • 2⊥: base-2 decode, giving the numbers
• ⎕UCS: get the character for each number

Answer 15

PHP (61)

<?=join(array_map('chr',array_map('bindec',explode(' ',$s))))

Answer 16

Bacchus, 25 bytes

S,' 'j:A=(Ö,2,10b:c),A¨

Explanation:

S,' 'j split the String S by the empty space and converts it to a block (some sort of array).

:A= get the previous Block and assing it to A variable.

(),A¨ for Each element in A

Ö,2,10b Read the current element (represent by Ö) in base 2 and transform it to base 10.

:c get the previous value and print as char

Answer 17

GolfScript 23

' '/{[{49=}/]2base}%''+

Online test here.

Answer 18

C - 63

since C has no base 2 converter in standard library: test here
edit: there is, i'm just too stupid to know about it

r;f(char*s){for(;*s;(*s|32)-32||(putchar(r),r=0))r=2*r|*s++&1;}

Answer 19

Run Length Encoded Brainfuck, 49 bytes

Since there are no variables in Brainfuck, I just used standard input and output instead.

The code 32+ should be interpreted as 32 +s by the interpreter. Just replace them manually if your interpreter doesn't support RLE.

>,[32->+<[16-<[>++<-]>[<+>-]>-<]>[<<.[-]>>-]<,]<.

Expanded (non-RLE) version: (91 bytes)

>,[-------------------------------->+<[----------------<[>++<-]>[<+>-]>-<]>[<<.[-]>>-]<,]<.

The code assumes that EOF is encoded as 0.

Explanation

The following layout is used:

+---+---+------+
| x | a | flag |
+---+---+------+

Where x is the ASCII byte to be printed, a is the a character from standard input and flag is 1 if a was a space.

>,            Read a character a into the second cell
[             While not EOF: 
  32-           Decrease a by 32 (a -= ' ')
  >+<           Set the flag to 1 
  [             If a was not a space:
    16-           Decrease by 16 more ('0' == 32+16)
    <[>++<-]      a += 2*x
    >[<+>-]       Move it back (x = a)
    >-<           Reset the flag, it was not a space.
  ]>
  [             If a was a space (flag == 1):
    <<.[-]        Print and reset x
    >>-           Reset the flag
  ]
  <,            Read the next caracter a
]
<.            Print the last character x

Answer 20

Java 8 : 60 bytes

Using lambdas in Java 8 (75 bytes):

Arrays.stream(s.split(" ")).reduce("",(a,b)->a+(char)Byte.parseByte(b,2));

And if you allow static imports (which some here used) it is (61 bytes):

stream(s.split(" ")).reduce("",(a,b)->a+(char)parseInt(b,2))

A tiny bit shorter version using for loop (60 bytes):

for(String n:s.split(" ")){out.print((char)parseInt(n,2));}

Answer 21

Clojure 63 (or 57)

The all-Clojure impl:

(apply str(map #(char(read-string(str"2r"%)))(re-seq #"\d+"s)))

With Java interop:

(apply str(map #(char(Long/parseLong % 2))(.split s" ")))

REPL session:

golf> (def s "1001000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1010111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100")
#'golf/s
golf> (apply str(map #(char(read-string(str"2r"%)))(re-seq #"\d+"s)))
"Hello World"
golf> (apply str(map #(char(Long/parseLong % 2))(.split s" ")))
"Hello World"

Answer 22

QBasic, 103

s$=s$+" ":FOR i=1 TO LEN(s$):c$=MID$(s$,i,1):IF c$=" "THEN n=0:r$=r$+CHR$(n)ELSE n=n*2+VAL(c$)
NEXT:?r$

What? We have no fancy binary-to-decimal functions here. Do it yourself!

I'm counting the newline (which I think is necessary to get the if-then-else without an END IF) as one byte, per this meta post. I don't know whether QB64 on Windows would accept a code file that way or not. Probably doesn't much matter.

Answer 23

Haskell -- 48 (+13 imports (?))

Here's my first golf attempt in Haskell.

map(chr.foldl1((+).(*2)).map digitToInt)$words s

You need to import Data.Char

usage (in ghci):

Prelude> :m +Data.Char
Prelude Data.Char> let s = "1001000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1010111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100"
Prelude Data.Char> map(chr.foldl1((+).(*2)).map digitToInt)$words s
"Hello World"

Explanation:

map(chr.foldl1((+).(*2)).map digitToInt)$words s
                                        $words s -- split s on spaces into a list
                         map digitToInt          -- convert each digit in input string to int
              ((+).(*2))                         -- a function that multiplies its first 
-- argument by 2, then adds the second argument
        foldl1((+).(*2)).map digitToInt          -- fold the above over the list of ints: 
-- in other words this is a function that reads strings as binary and gives the value as int
   (chr.foldl1((+).(*2)).map digitToInt)         -- cast to character
map(chr.foldl1((+).(*2)).map digitToInt)$words s -- map our function over the list of words

Answer 24

NodeJS – 62

Buffer(s.split(' ').map(function(a){return parseInt(a,2)}))+''

PHP – 75

array_reduce(explode(' ', $b),function($a,$b){return $a.chr(bindec($b));});

Answer 25

JavaScript 111

This does the number conversion without parseInt or eval. Reading the string backwards and counting bits it set's bit x if it's a one. When a space is found a the number is converted to a char and a new 0 number is started for setting bits.

x=n=0,w='',s=' '+s
for(i=s.length;i--;){m=s[i]
if(m==1)n|=1<<x
x++
if(m==' ')w=String.fromCharCode(n)+w,n=x=0
}

Answer 26

Groovy 64

{it.split(" ").collect{Integer.parseInt(it,2) as char}.join("")}

Answer 27

CJam, 11 bytes

NS/{:~2bc}/

s isn't a legal variable name in CJam, so I chose N instead.

Try it online.

Example run

$ cjam <(echo '
> "1001000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1010111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100"
> :N;
> NS/{:~2bc}/
> '); echo
Hello World

How it works

NS/            " Split N at spaces.                            ";
   {     }/    " For each chunk:                               ";
    :~         "   Evaluate each character ('0' ↦ 0, '1' ↦ 1). ";
      2b       "   Convert from base 2 array to integer.       ";
        c      "   Cast to character.                          ";

Answer 28

05AB1E, 4 bytes (non-competing)

Saved 3 bytes thanks to @Emigna

#CçJ

Try it online!

Answer 29

GNU Sed, 19 bytes

Inspired by an excellent @Digital Trauma answer.

Golfed

s/\w*/dc -e2i&P;/eg

Test

echo 1001000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1010111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100|\
sed 's/\w*/dc -e2i&P;/eg'

Hello World

Answer 30

Pyth, 7 bytes (non-competing)

smCid2c

Takes input as string.

Try it!

Answer 31

05AB1E (legacy), 4 bytes

#CçJ

Try it online!

Explanation:

#CçJ
#   : Split implicit input at spaces
 C  : Convert every element to int
  ç : chr(n)
   J: Join elements, push it to the stack for printing

Edit: I noticed I perfectly duplicated a previous answer by my own, but keep it.

Answer 32

K4, 18 bytes

Solution:

"c"$2/:'"1"=" "\:s

Example:

q)s:"1001000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1010111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100"
q)k)"c"$2/:'"1"=" "\:s
"Hello World"

Explanation:

"c"$2/:'"1"=" "\:s / the solution
                 s / the input
            " "\:  / split (\:) on " "
        "1"=       / equal to "1" ?
    2/:'           / join (/:) each (') from base-2
"c"$               / cast to characters

Answer 33

K (ngn/k), 15 11 bytes

Solution:

`c$2/10\. s

Try it online!

Explanation:

`c$2/10\. s / the solution
          s / input s
        .   / value "1100" => 1100
     10\    / convert to base 10
   2/       / convert from base 2
`c$         / cast to character

• -4 bytes thanks to ngn!

Answer 34

Zsh, 27 26 bytes

-1 from roblogic

for c
printf ${(#):-2\#$c}

Try it online! Try it online!

The (#) flag causes arithmetic expansion to be done to the contents of the parameter -- which in this case is empty, falling back to 2\#$c. This parses $c as a binary number, converting it to a character.

---

This relies on flexible I/O, each group of bits in its own parameter. This is what the pure bash answer does as well. To parse a single string, +6 bytes are needed in the first line: (Example)

for c ($=s)     # for string in $s
for c ($=1)     # for string passed whole to function

Answer 35

Python 3, 33 bytes

bytes(int(c,2)for c in s.split())

Try it online!

This solution outputs a byte string in Python. If it is required to return a regular Python string:

Python 3, 42 bytes

bytes(int(c,2)for c in s.split()).decode()

Try it online!

Answer 36

brainfuck, 74 61 bytes

,[>++++[>++++<-]>[<+<-->>-]<<[>[<->-]<<[>++<-]]<[.[-]]>>>,]<.

Try it online!

Explanation:

[tape: char, 'input, 16, 16]
[      else]

,[                      for each input
  >++++[>++++<-]>           set const 16
  [<+<-->>-]                decrement input by 32
  <<[                       if not input = space
    >[<->-]                     decrement input by 16
    <<[>++<-]                   add double of char to input
  ]
  <[                        else
    .                           print character
    [-]                         delete character
  ]
  >>>,                      input next character
]
<.                      print last character

Answer 37

Python 3, 43 bytes

for i in s.split():print(end=chr(int(i,2)))

fixed a blunder! Thanks to @caird-coinheringaahing XD

Try it online!

Answer 38

REXX, 56 bytes (or 15)

o=
do w=1 to words(s)
  o=o||x2c(b2x(word(s,w)))
  end
say o

Alternatively, if the input values are an even 8 bits instead of varying in length as in the example, this may be shortened to just one line:

say x2c(b2x(s))

Answer 39

AHK, 115 bytes

Loop,Parse,s," "
{x:=D(A_LoopField)
Send % Chr(x)
}
D(x){
Return (StrLen(x)>1?D(SubStr(x,1,-1))<<1:0)|SubStr(x,0)
}

The loop parses the string using a space as the delimeter.
The function D(x) converts x from binary to decimal.
The Chr function returns the ASCII character with the value x.

Answer 40

Tcl, 46 bytes

proc B s {binary f B* [regsub -all " " $s ""]}

Try it online!

Tcl, 51 bytes

proc B s {binary format B* [regsub -all " " $s ""]}

Try it online!

Answer 41

q/kdb+, 22 bytes

Solution:

10h$0b sv'"1"=-8$" "vs

Example:

q)10h$0b sv'"1"=-8$" "vs"1001000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1010111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100"
"Hello World"

Explanation:

Split string on " ", left-pad each to 8 characters, return boolean list where each string is equal to "1", convert each 8-bit list to a byte and then cast to a string:

10h$0b sv'"1"=-8$" "vs / the solution
                 " "vs / split (vs) on " "
              -8$      / pad ($) to 8-long, negative means left-pad
          "1"=         / is item in each list equal to 1, returns true (1) or false (0) for each
    0b sv'             / convert each (') from boolean list to bytes
10h$                   / cast ($) to character type (10h)

Answer 42

Deorst, 11 bytes

o k`]mxmcE;

Try it online!

How it works

Example input: 1001000 1100101

o<space>    - Push a  space;    STACK = [' ', '1001000 1100101']
  k         - Turn off sort;    STACK = [' ', '1001000 1100101']
   `        - Split;            STACK = [['1001000', '1100101']]
    ]       - Flatten;          STACK = ['1001000', '1100101']
     mx     - Map from binary;  STACK = [72, 101]
       mc   - Map to character; STACK = ['H', 'e']
         E; - Concatenate;      STACK = ['H', 'e', 'He']

Answer 43

Perl, 27 bytes

say pack"(B8)*",split' ',$s

Answer 44

Julia 1.0, 40 bytes

join(Char.(parse.(Int,split(s),base=2)))

Try it online!

Answer 45

Gol><>, 27 24 bytes

IWaSD$|rlF2LX*}|lR+oiE;~

Try it online!

Explanation:

I                         //Read the next number as integer
 W                        //Loop to extract single digits
  aSD                     //  Perform a mod & div by 10 on the current number
     $|                   //  Repeat until the number is 0
       r                  //Reverse the stack to go from LSB to MSB
        lF                //Loop over all single bits and replace all 1's with their corresponding value
          2LX             //  Push 2^x where x is the number of the current bit -> value of topmost bit
             *            //  Multiply the value of the topmost bit with the bit itself
              }|          //  Shift right to get the next bit
                lR+       //Add all values on the stack together
                   o      //Output the decimal value as a char
                    iE;~  //Check for EOF if true terminate

Answer 46

Common Lisp, 79 bytes

(map'string'code-char(let((*read-base* 2))(read-from-string(format()"(~a)"s))))

Try it online!

Answer 47

Powershell, 48 bytes

Inspired by Joey's and fuandon's answers.

-join(-split$s|%{[char][convert]::ToByte($_,2)})

Answer 48

Perl 6, 24 bytes

*.words>>.&{:2($_)}.chrs

Try it online!

Anonymous Whatever lambda that takes a string and returns a string.

Explanation

*.words                   # Split by spaces
       >>.&{      }       # Map each word to
            :2($_)        # Parsing it as binary
                   .chrs  # Convert to characters

Answer 49

Bash (Pure): 54

Pure bash and no fork!

f(){ for a;do printf -vv \\%o $[2#$a];printf $v;done;}

f 1001000 1100101 1101100 1101100 1101111 100000 1010111 1101111 1110010 1101100 1100100
Hello World

Explanation

• f() declare function f
• for a;do ... done take each argument successively and attrib them to variable a in loop
• $[2#$a] convert binary to decimal
• printf -vv \\%o $... convert decimal to octal, preceded by backslash \ for next printf and attribute this to variable v.
• printf $v will render character.

Answer 50

C# (Visual C# Interactive Compiler), 61 bytes

s.Split(" ").Aggregate("",(a,b)=>a+(char)Convert.ToByte(b,2))

Splits the binary string, and adds each byte into the string. You need to have the seed for aggregate, or else the first byte won't be parsed.

Try it online!

Answer 51

Japt -P, 4 bytes

¸®Íd

Try it

¸®Íd     :Implicit input of string
¸        :Split on spaces
 ®       :Map
  Í      :  Convert from binary string to integer
   d     :  Get character at that codepoint
         :Implicitly join & output

Answer 52

Perl 5 -a, 24 bytes

say map chr oct"0b$_",@F

Try it online!

Answer 53

Julia 1.0, 44 bytes

prod(Char.(parse.(Int,split(s," "),base=2)))

Try it online!

Answer 54

Lua, 59 bytes

for k in s:gmatch'%d+'do io.write(s.char(tonumber(k,2)))end

Answer 55

Erlang, 45 Bytes

[binary_to_integer(X,2)||X<-re:split(S," ")].

Strings are represented as a list of integers in Erlang. This returns a list of ASCII codes which, when printed, will be represented as a string if all ASCII codes are printable characters.

Answer 56

Python, 46 bytes

''.join(map(lambda x:chr(int(x,2)),s.split()))