Python as a scripting language. Alternative to bash script?

[member thudfoo]

On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 6:40 AM, Michael Torrie <torriem at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 07/06/2010 04:12 AM, sturlamolden wrote:
>> On 28 Jun, 19:39, Michael Torrie <torr... at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> In python I could simply take the output of "ps ax" and use python's
>>> own, superior, cutting routines (using my module):
>>>
>>> (err, stdout, stderr) = runcmd.run( [ 'ps', 'ax' ] )
>>> for x in stdout.split('\n'):
>>>     print x.strip().split()[0]
>>
>> Or you just pass the stdout of one command as stdin to another. That
>> is equivalent of piping with bash.
>
> Consider this contrived example:
>
> tail -f /var/log/messages | grep openvpn
>
> While it's possible to set up pipes and spawn programs in parallel to
> operate on the pipes, in practice it's simpler to tell subprocess.Popen
> to use a shell and then just rely on Bash's very nice syntax for setting
> up the pipeline.  Then just read the final output in python.  If you set
> the stdout descriptor to non-blocking, you could read output as it came.
> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>

Is this a discussion about the pipes module in the std library?