[Numpy-discussion] Converting string to array

[Andrew Nesbit]

I have a string representing a sequence of 16-bit audio samples, read
in from an AIFF file like this:

f = aifc.open("filename.aiff", "r")
data = f.readframes(f.getnframes())

I can convert this to a tuple of signed 16-bit integers using the
Python standard library "array" module:

a = array.array("h", data)

This gives samples in the range [-32768, 32767] and everything is
fine.

However, instead of using module array I want to use Numeric's array
function in an equivalent way.  I've been trying to do it like this:

a = Numeric.array(data, Numeric.Int16)

Now, a.itemsize() outputs 2, which seems fine, but when I iterate over
the resulting array (using standard a[i] notation), the results
indicate that the array is being treated as a sequence of 8-bit,
rather than 16-bit, integers.

What am I doing wrong here?

Thanks in advance.

Andrew.