Everything you can do in the shell you can do using Python. The two key modules for doing so are:

• os, which is easy import os os.system(“ls -l -a”)

• subprocess, which is “best”

    import subprocess
    subprocess.call(["ls"])
    subprocess.call(["ls", "-l"])
    directory_list = subprocess.check_output(["ls", "-l"])
    directory_list = subprocess.os.listdir('.')