equivalent of source <file> in python?

[Thomas Jollans]

On Tuesday 24 August 2010, it occurred to News123 to exclaim:
> On 08/24/2010 09:18 PM, Astan Chee wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I'm trying to convert my tcsh script to python and am stuck at one part,
> > particularly the part of the script that looks like this:
> > 
> > #!/bin/tcsh
> > setenv LSFLOG /var/tmp/lsf_log
> > source /etc/setup
> > unalias cp
> > umask 0
> > env >> ${AFLOG}
> > 
> > What is the equivalent of doing this in python2.5?
> > Thanks again
> 
> the equivalent would be exec(), but I'm not sure, that it is a good idea
> to try to make a
> word by word translation of a shell script into python.
> 
> 
> you could do
> exec( open("/etc/setup").read() )

Rather use execfile here.

Though you'd probably rather want to write a Python module and use it as such 
(you know, import).

> 
> but of course you had to translate /etc/setup
> 
> to python.