Strange return value from os.system(...) call

[David Scott Williams]

I have a shell script that exits out with either a 0 or 1...and am 
experiencing a strange phenomenon...

somevalue=os.system("/path/to/script")
print "somevalue:"+str(somevalue)

If my script exits with 0, somevalue is 0
...if it exits with 1, somevalue is 256


-- 
~David

"I drank what?!" -Socrates