[python-win32] Trying to run an external program

[Brant Sears]

Hi. I'm new to Python and I am trying to use it on Windows XP. I am trying to use it to replicate the same thing that I do on Linux and Mac via shell scripting (Batch files aren't powerful enough, so I've decided to try to use Python.)

What I want to do is execute a program and have the results of the execution assigned to a variable. According to the documentation the way to do this is as follows:

import commands
x = commands.getstatusoutput('dir')

This should assign "x" to be the output of the command "dir". However, when I run this (or any other command), x ends up being:

(1, "'{' is not recognized as an internal or external command,\noperable program or batch file.")

>From looking through the documentation, I'm believing that the implementation of commands.getstatusoutput is actually some multi-step thing that starts with issuing the bracket character that is being choked on. This leads me to believe that Python or perhaps just the commands module is not setup correctly on my computer.

I installed Python using the Python2-5.msi link that I found at:
http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.5/

I left everything the default during installation, so Python was installed to C:\Python25. The only other thing I did was add this PATH variable on my computer.

Any ideas on what I might do to troubleshoot this?

Thanks!

Brant Sears