A lot of people use Python as a replacement for shell scripts, using it to automate commonsystem tasks, such as manipulating files, configuring systems, and so forth. Themain goal of this chapter is to describe features related to common tasks encounteredwhen writing scripts. For example, parsing command-line options, manipulating fileson the filesystem, getting useful system configuration data, and so forth. Chapter 5 alsocontains general information related to files and directories.