These are just some notes about working with processes in Python.
The module of interest is os. [http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-os.html (os module documentation)]
Environment variables are accessed through a dictionary, os.environ.
Processes are created with os.popen, [http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/os-newstreams.html#os-newstreams described in os 6.1.2.]
1 import os
2
3 # Export an environment variable
4 os.environ["FOO"] = "BAR"
5
6 # Make sure environment variable set for child processes
7 for line in os.popen("bash -c 'env'").read().splitlines():
8 if line.startswith("FOO="):
9 print line
10
11 # Since environment variable "FOO" is exported, and since child
12 # processes inherit environment variables from their parents, this
13 # works.