Example of capturing Bash output in Python

example.py

from subprocess import check_output

def sh(x): return check_output(x, shell=True).decode()

def script(x):
    return sh("""
    derp () {{
      printf "hello %d\\n" {0}
      sha256sum example.py
    }}
    derp "world"
    """.format(x))

s = script(42)
print(s)