Those would be quite different functions, then, unless you proposed to have Python interpret native shell metacharacters on its own too (e.g., set up pipes, do the indicated file redirections, interpolate envars, and fake whatever other shell gimmicks people may use).
What we need is a function which does all those things, but uses some way of specifying them *other* than shell metacharacters. E.g. os.plumb(("sed", "-e", "s/dead/resting/", "parrots"), ("grep", "norwegian"), output = myfile)) Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--------------------------------------+ University of Canterbury, | A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a | Christchurch, New Zealand | wholly-owned subsidiary of USA Inc. | greg@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz +--------------------------------------+