Ah, so using python for stuff bash is usually used for. I thought OP meant writing python scripts to be used as components of bash scripts. For _that_ type of

Ah, so using python for stuff bash is usually used for. I thought OP meant writing python scripts to be used as components of bash scripts. For _that_ type of python, I usually use the sh module[0]. It handles piping pretty well, especially if you use StringIO to deal with the pipes. Unfortunately, return code-based conditionals are nowhere as simple as || and && are in shell. [0] http://amoffat.github.io/sh/ http://amoffat.github.io/sh/