old_contents: #!/usr/bin/env python
  """Create two randomly generated matrices, of the specified sizes and write them
  to JSON files.
  
  """
  import json
  import numpy as np
  
  
  def read(path):
  
  	with open(path, 'rb') as f:
  		matrix = np.fromfile(f, dtype=np.float32)
  
  	return matrix
  
  def write(path, matrix):
  
  	with open(path, 'wb') as f:
  		f.write(matrix.astype(np.float32).tostring())
  
  	return matrix
  
new_contents: #!/usr/bin/env python
  """Create two randomly generated matrices, of the specified sizes and write them
  to JSON files.
  
  """
  import json
  import numpy as np
  import os
  
  
  type_map = {
  	'.i32' : np.int32,
  	'.u32' : np.uint32,
  	'.f32' : np.float32,
  	'.i64' : np.int64,
  	'.u64' : np.uint64,
  	'.f64' : np.float64
  }
  
  def get_extension(path):
  	filename, file_extension = os.path.splitext(path)
  	return file_extension
  
  def read(path, dtype=np.float32):
  
  	extension = get_extension(path)
  	if extension in type_map:
  		dtype = type_map[extension]
  
  	with open(path, 'rb') as f:
  		matrix = np.fromfile(f, dtype=dtype)
  
  	return matrix
  
  def write(path, matrix, dtype=np.float32):
  
  	extension = get_extension(path)
  	if extension in type_map:
  		dtype = type_map[extension]
  
  	with open(path, 'wb') as f:
  		f.write(matrix.astype(dtype=dtype).tostring())
  
  	return matrix
  
subject: allow for test data types other than float32