calling command line programs?

[Yevgeniy (Eugene) Medynskiy]

Hi all,

This is probably a very newbie question, but after searching google and 
docs @ python.org I can't find an answer, so maybe someone would be able 
to help?

I'd like to call command-line functions from my python script (like you 
would in perl using backticks)... Is there a way of doing this? And if 
so, how does the environment get treated (I have some variables in my 
env that the programs I'd be calling need to see).

Thanks much!
Eugene