Splitting a float into bytes:

[Michael Yanowitz]

Hello:

  For some reason I can't figure out how to split
a 4-byte (for instance) float number (such as 3.14159265359)
into its 4-bytes so I can send it via a socket to another
computer.
  For integers, it is easy, I can get the 4 bytes by anding like:
byte1 = int_val & 0x000000FF
byte2 = int_val & 0x0000FF00
byte3 = int_val & 0x00FF0000
byte4 = int_val & 0xFF000000
  But if I try to do that with floats I get:
>>> pi & 0xFF
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for &: 'float' and 'int'

  Is there some easy way to get what the bytes of the float are?

Thanks in advance:
Michael Yanowitz