Command shell access within Python

[pieroul at attglobal.net]

I am new to Python and i want to execute several shell commands within a Python function.  Is there an easy way to execute several
shell command lines and get the return code of each of them using a Python library call?

Things like os.execv(), os.system() and os.startfile() allow me to execute one command at a time, starting one process for every
statement.  I also played with the os.popen(), os.popen2(),...

These allow to get a pipe to a command shell and issue commands and read the results via stdin, stdout and stderr.

But there must be a better way so I can use Python to execute command line programs programmatically using Python the way you would
use a command line script.

I also need to get the return code (c exit()) of the program that ran.

I do not want to start one command shell process for every single command line .

Anyone knows how to do it?


Thanks



Pierre R.