pipes like perl

[infidel]

Here's one technique I use to run an external command in a particular
module:

        stdin, stdout, stderr = os.popen3(cmd)
        stdin.close()
        results = stdout.readlines()
        stdout.close()
        errors = stderr.readlines()
        stderr.close()
        if errors:
            raise Exception(''.join(errors))

Maybe this will get you going in a better direction?