HOWTO execute an external program?

[Eyal Lotem]

Patrick Guio wrote:

> 
> Dear all,
> I would like to use python as a scripting language to run my simulation
> code. I would like to know how do I do that ?
> Is there a way to evaluate how long it took to run the command (make a
> kind of summary/log of the run)?
> Sincerely
> Patrick

RTFM :)
Direction: (The OS module, and the profiler)
Should be in the standard documentation package, if I recall correctly.