sh is a full-fledged subprocess replacement for Python 2.6 - 3.8, PyPy and PyPy3 that allows you to call any program as if it were a function:

from sh import ifconfig print ( ifconfig ( "wlan0" ))

Output:

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:00:00:00:00 inet addr:192.168.1.100 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: ffff::ffff:ffff:ffff:fff/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:0 (0 GB) TX bytes:0 (0 GB)

Note that these aren’t Python functions, these are running the binary commands on your system by dynamically resolving your $PATH , much like Bash does, and then wrapping the binary in a function. In this way, all the programs on your system are easily available to you from within Python.