how to test for a dependency

[Darren Dale]

Hello,

I would like to test that latex is installed on a windows, mac or linux
machine. What is the best way to do this? This should work:

if os.system('latex -v'):
    print 'please install latex'

but I dont actually want the latex version information to print to screen. I
tried redirecting sys.stdout to a file, but that doesnt help. Is there a
better way to do this in a cross-platform friendly way?

Thanks,
Darren