I currently do my textfile manipulation through a bunch of badly remembered AWK, sed, Bash and a tiny bit of Perl.
I've seen mentioned a few places that python is good for this kind of thing. How can I use Python to replace shell scripting, AWK, sed and friends?
I have built semi-long shell scripts (300-500 lines) and Python code which does similar functionality.  When many external commands are being executed, I find the shell is easier to use.  Perl is also a good option when there is lots of text manipulation.
How to implement common bash idioms in Python?