Loading a file into the interpreter

[Thomas Womack]

I'd like, from the command line of the python interpreter, to get the
effect of having typed in the contents of some text file; the sort of
thing I'd expect a "load" command to do.

I can do "python prog.py", but that doesn't leave me in the
interpreter afterwards, and I'd often like to set some variables, load
a program, and poke about to see what the variables look like
afterwards.

Tom