Whiteboard: Binary to String | Dataford Interview Questions

A Gentex embedded controller must encode signed sensor values into fixed-width binary fields before transmission. Implement a function that converts an integer to its binary representation without using Python's bin() or formatting helpers.

The result must use two's-complement representation and contain exactly bits characters. Positive values are left-padded with zeroes. Negative values are represented by adding 2^bits before extracting bits.

Formal Specification

Implement integer_to_binary(value, bits).

Input: value, an integer in the signed range -2^(bits-1) <= value < 2^(bits-1), and bits, an integer from 1 through 32.
Output: a string of exactly bits characters, each character either '0' or '1'.
Do not call bin(), format(), string conversion of the integer, or library-based base conversion.

Constraints

1 <= bits <= 32
-2^(bits - 1) <= value < 2^(bits - 1)
The output contains exactly bits characters
Only '0' and '1' may appear in the output
Built-in binary conversion and formatting helpers are not allowed

Function Signature

def integer_to_binary(value, bits):

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