Takes Cambell Scientific High Resolution 18-Bit Binary Format and converts it to a CSV row

convert.py

def decode_campbell_18_bit_binary_message(bites):
    """
    Takes Cambell Scientific High Resolution 18-Bit Binary Format and converts
    it to a CSV row.
    """
    row = []
    while True:
        # Number are three bytes long
        byte_s = bites.read(3)
        if not byte_s:
            break
        # logger.debug('Bytes: {}'.format(byte_s, type(byte_s)))
        members = []
        for i, b in enumerate(byte_s):
            # binary = '{0:08b}'.format(b)
            # logger.debug('Binary {}: {}'.format(i, binary))
            # Apply mask to remove first two bits
            mask = 0b00111111
            masked = mask & b
            masked_bin = '{0:08b}'.format(masked)[2:]
            # logger.debug('Masked {}: {}'.format(i, masked_bin))
            members.append(masked_bin.encode())
        sofar = b''.join(members)
        # logger.debug('Combined mask: {}'.format(sofar))
        integ = int(sofar, 2)
        # This correctly subtracts one and takes the complement if
        # the value should be negative per the Campbell Scientific docs
        # It's a typical two's complement
        # http://stackoverflow.com/a/9147327
        bits = 18
        if (integ & (1 << (bits - 1))) != 0:
            integ = integ - (1 << bits)
        row.append(str(integ))

    return ','.join(row)