I am trying to use Python to select a variable from a list, then speak it outloud using the bash command. Right now I have something like this
foo = ["a","b","c","d"]
from random import choice
x = choice(foo)
foo.remove(x)
from os import system
system('say x')
This says "x", what I need is for it to say the value of the x variable.
I suppose you can use os.system, but better might be subprocess:
import subprocess
subprocess.call(['say',x])
you are passing astring you can use value of x like
sytem('say {0}'.format(x))
When passing strings you can use string formatting. As you realized you need to get the value of x in the string not the variable x http://docs.python.org/library/string.html#format-examples
str.format() is the recommended method - e.g: system('say {0}'.format(x)).use string formatting:
In [9]: x="ls -ld"
In [10]: os.system("{0}".format(x))
drwxr-xr-x 41 monty monty 4096 2012-10-10 22:46 .
Out[10]: 0
os.system is inflexible and can be error-prone and insecure. The subprocess module provides much better functionality for this.
"{0}".format("value") is just an incredibly complex way to say "value".