> But if you use python, why would you do it in shell? > > !!! Because I was using windows only a month ago, and am switching to linux. Doing this project at command line was working alright, and then of course scripting started to have some applications... But I did not know about the amazing python/shell connection. horray! All I've learned is the subprocess("cmd") deal, but thats pretty cool. That's enough for me to use python already. Is there a better way to parse -identify than to use one of the suggested commands in a python subprocess call? thanks, elliot