Retaining an object

[gry at ll.mit.edu]

sysfault wrote:
> Hello, I have a function which takes a program name, and I'm using
> os.popen() to open that program via the syntax: os.popen('pidof var_name',
> 'r'), but as you know var_name is not expanded within single quotes, I
> tried using double quotes, and such, but no luck. I was looking for a way
> to have var_name expanded without getting a syntax error by ommiting the
> surrounding quotes. I need to use a variable, it's the argument to a
> function.

Use the string format operator "%":

var_name='magick'
os.popen('pidof %s' % var_name, 'r')

this results in running:
    pidof magick

You should really read through the Python tutorial to get basic stuff
like this:

http://docs.python.org/tut/tut.html