Converts strings of binary to binary - python-3.x

Question

I have a text file and a would like to read it in binary so I can transform its content into hexadecimal characters.
Then, I need to replace '20' by '0' and '80', 'e2', '8f' by '1'.
This would create a string of 0 and 1 (basically binary).
Finally, I need to convert this binary string into ascii characters.
I'm almost finish but I struggle with the last part:
import binascii
import sys
bin_file = 'TheMessage.txt'
with open(bin_file, 'rb') as file:
file_content = file.read().hex()
file_content = file_content.replace('20', '0').replace('80', '1').replace('e2', '1').replace('8f', '1')
print(file_content)
text_bin = binascii.a2b_uu(file_content)
The last line produces an error (I do not fully understand strings/hex/binary interpretation in python):
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "binary_to_string.py", line 34, in <module>
text_bin = binascii.a2b_uu(file_content)
binascii.Error: Trailing garbage
Could you give me a hand?
I'm working on this file: blank_file

Answer 1

I think you're looking for something like this? Refer to comments for why I do what I did.
import binascii
import sys
bin_file = 'TheMessage.txt'
with open(bin_file, 'rb') as file:
file_content = file.read().hex()
file_content = file_content.replace('20', '0').replace('80', '1').replace('e2', '1').replace('8f', '1')
# First we must split the string into a list so we can get bytes easier.
bin_list = []
for i in range(0, len(file_content), 8): # 8 bits in a byte!
bin_list.append(file_content[i:i+8])
message = ""
for binary_value in bin_list:
binary_integer = int(binary_value, 2) # Convert the binary value to base2
ascii_character = chr(binary_integer) # Convert integer to ascii value
message+=ascii_character
print(message)
One thing I noticed while working with this is that using your solution/file, there are 2620 bits, and this does not divide into 8, so it can not properly become bytes.