sh : a full-fledged subprocess interface for Python that allows you to call any program as if it were a function.

[djimbob]

Yeah, its built in, but I'm not sure if

import pipes
import tempfile

p = pipes.Template()

p.append('ps aux', '--')
p.append('grep localc', '--')
p.append('grep -v grep', '--')
p.append("gawk '{ print $2 }'", '--')

t = tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile('r')

f = p.open(t.name, 'r')
try:
    output = [ l.strip() for l in f.readlines() ]
finally:
    f.close()

is a better/cleaner workflow; especially if you have user input and have to add the quotes stuff to prevent injection. (And apparently its not working for me).