x = np.array([1, 2, 3, 4])

print x.shape

#(4, )

y = np.zeros((2, 3, 4))

y.shape

#(2, 3, 4)

y.shape = (3, 8)

y

#array([[ 0.,  0.,  0.,  0.,  0.,  0.,  0.,  0.],

#       [ 0.,  0.,  0.,  0.,  0.,  0.,  0.,  0.],

#       [ 0.,  0.,  0.,  0.,  0.,  0.,  0.,  0.]])

y.shape = (3, 6)

#Traceback (most recent call last):

#  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>

#ValueError: total size of new array must be unchanged