> but... i see it doesn't work for some commands, like "man python" (it > gets stuck on the "if" line)...
.readlines() won't return until it hits end-of-file, but the "man" command waits for user input to scroll the content, like the "more" or "less" commands let you view "pages" of information on a terminal. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list