This is my patch:

This is my patch:

[ 1181301 ] make float packing copy bytes when they can

which hasn't been reviewed, despite numerous threats to check it in
anyway if noone reviews it.  Please read the diff on the checkin list,
at least!

The basic idea is to examine the bytes of some 'probe values' to see if
the current platform is a IEEE 754-ish platform, and if so
_PyFloat_{Pack,Unpack}{4,8} just copy bytes around.

The rest is hair for testing, and tests.