SPI using SpiDev with LIS2DH sensor, need to send 2 repeated bytes in spi.xfer2 to get data valid back

Question

class LIS2DH_Class(object):
mySpi = 0
def __init__(self):
    self.spi = spidev.SpiDev()
    self.spi.open(0,0)
    self.spi.max_speed_hz = 10000000 #10 Mhz is max limit on LIS2DH SPI communication
def whoAmI(self):
    resp = self.spi.xfer2([0x8f,0x8f])
    return resp
print accel.whoAmI()

above is the code i wrote for an LIS2DH accelerometer. 0x0F is the whoami register. I'm bitwise OR with 0x80 to send a read command, followed by the register address. see protocol below;

this code above will return [255,51]

51 is the expected value, 255 is garbage. How can i reduce a read command to just sending 1 byte?

Answer 1

Thank you @JOAN for clearing things up.

need to send 1st byte as command, and then shift out another 8 bits to get my return data. here are two functions that are working for me

def readRegister(self,regAddr):
    address = 0x80 | regAddr 
    resp = self.spi.xfer2([address,0x00])
    return resp[1]

def writeRegister(self,regAddr,value):
    self.spi.xfer2([regAddr,value])