[Numpy-discussion] Functions to pack/unpack bytes?

[Neal Becker]

Neal Becker wrote:

> Does numpy have functions to convert between e.g. an array of uint32 and
> uint8, where the uint32 array is a packed version of the uint8 array
> (selecting little/big endian)?

I've been thinking about making a ufunc (in python) to do this, but have no 
idea how to make a ufunc for a function that consumes 4 consecutive values 
of it's input and produces an output array of 1/4 the size of the input.  Is 
that possible?