newbie question

[Paul Watson]

"Jeremy Jones" <zanesdad at bellsouth.net> wrote in message 
news:mailman.6431.1100623812.5135.python-list at python.org...
> John wrote:
>
>>Can python do Shell programming or system programming as perl does?
>>Thanks.
>>
>>John
>>
> Yes.  The only problem is that the perpetual migraine you have from doing 
> Perl and shell will quickly go away.  So, if you're into pain, stick with 
> Perl and shell.  If you want relief, come to Python.
>
> Seriously, though, Python is an excellent language for doing sysadmin type 
> tasks. (I'm assuming that's kind of what you wanted?)  Most sysadmin type 
> tasks are in modules whereas with Perl, they're cluttering the toplevel 
> namespace (I don't think Perl has the concept of namespace, but you get 
> the drift).  So, not knowing what you want to do, you may want to checkout 
> the os module in Python (I've found os.path.* to be specifically helpful). 
> You may also want to checkout the shutil module.
> Jeremy

While I usually use Python, I must admit that doing:
    $s = `ls -al $thefilename`
seems easier and clearer than:
    import os
    s = os.popen("ls -al %s" % thefilename)