Binary representation of floating point numbers

[63q2o4i02 at sneakemail.com]

Hi,

I'm using python to run some lab equipment using PyVisa.  When I read a
list of values from the equipment, one of the fields is 32 bits of
flags, but the value is returned as a floating point number, either in
ASCII format, or pure binary.  In either case, since I'm using PyVisa,
it converts the number to a single precision floating point, and that's
what I have to work with.

The question is how do I recover the bits out of this floating point
value so I can read the flags represented here?

Also, it's little (or big?) endian.  Whatever... how do I manipulate
the endianness?

thanks
Michael