Binary number manipulation

[Matthew A. Berglund]

Hello All!

I am very new to python so I am working on some ass-umptions which may be incorrect (please forgive me).

I am working on a problem that requires me to take 2 decimal integers, each of which represents half of a word. I need to slap these things together and get out another decimal integer.
A couple of questions:
1. Is there a way to typecast a variable as a binary?
2. If 1 is no, does that mean that I need to do all the manipulation in some icky string format and then go back?

I do see the bit-wise operations available and this looks like I need to simply perform these on my integers? Can it really be that simple?

Thanks,
Matt