How do I treat an integer as an array of bytes in Python?

I'm trying to decode the result of the Python os.wait() function. This returns, according to the Python docs: a tuple containing its pid and exit status indication: a 16-bit number, whose low byte is the signal number that killed the process, and whose high byte is the exit status (if the signal number is zero); the high bit of the low byte is set if a core file was produced. How do I decode the exit status indication (which is an integer) to obtain the high and low byte? To be specific, how do I implement the decode function used in the following code snippet: ``` (pid,status) = os.wait() (exitstatus, signum) = decode(status) ```