MAC address conversion into byte array in python

Question

I have a mac address in this format

00:45:36:45:f2:00  

I want to convert this mac address into byte array. I mean, by removing the ':' in between, I get total of 6 bytes and those 6 bytes should sit as six bytes in a byte array. And how is that byte array converted into an integer? Is there any in-built function in python that would do that with very very less execution time(like in microseconds)?

Answer 1

In python version 3.10.1

code is

import binascii
macbytes = binascii.unhexlify(addr.replace(':', ''))

the replace function/definition should be provided with strings-' ' and not bytes-b' '