Indeed. For this use case to_bytes would be correct (writing this in the most verbose way possible :) >>> (-352).to_bytes(length=4, byteorder='big', signed

Indeed. For this use case to_bytes would be correct (writing this in the most verbose way possible :) >>> (-352).to_bytes(length=4, byteorder='big', signed=True).hex() 'fffffea0' >>> (352).to_bytes(length=4, byteorder='big', signed=True).hex() '00000160' Note how well-defined and independent of the actual machine this conversion is. Since you define everything - length, byte order and whether to get two's complement or not - you'll get the same output everywhere.