Module commands

Execute shell commands via os.popen() and return status, output.
Interface summary:
 import commands
 outtext = commands.getoutput(cmd)
 (exitstatus, outtext) = commands.getstatusoutput(cmd)
 outtext = commands.getstatus(file) # returns output of "ls -ld file"
A trailing newline is removed from the output string.
Encapsulates the basic operation:
 pipe = os.popen('{ ' + cmd + '; } 2>&1', 'r')
 text = pipe.read()
 sts = pipe.close()
 [Note: it would be nice to add functions to interpret the exit status.]