[Distutils] buildout examples clarification

[Jeff Kunce]

I am using the buildout page on pypi as a reference
  http://pypi.python.org/pypi/zc.buildout

What is the python shell used for the examples?  I can follow what is
going on, but I'm not familiar with some of the functions used. For
example:
  >>> write(sample_buildout, 'recipes', 'mkdir.py', ...)

Sorry if this is a silly question, but I'm stumped.  Thanks.