I like xonsh. http://xonsh.org/ http://xonsh.org/ It has two modes, which can be a bit confusing. A python mode and a bash-ish mode. testdata = $(ls -l)

I like xonsh. http://xonsh.org/ http://xonsh.org/ It has two modes, which can be a bit confusing. A python mode and a bash-ish mode. testdata = $(ls -l) #Takes thes bash command 'ls -l' and saves it to the python variable testdata echo ${testdata.upper()} | grep XLIO $(ls).split("\n") It uses some magic to figure out whether you're in a python context or a bash context, defaulting to python. If you save some stuff to a variable called "ls", you need to del(ls) before you can use ls as a command again.