[Python] How to obtain output from external progam and put it into a variable in Python

I am still fairly new to the python world and know this should be an easy question to answer. I have this section of a script in python that calls a script in Perl. This Perl script is a SOAP service that fetches data from a web page. Everything works great and outputs what I want, but after a bit of trial and error I am confused to how I can capture the data with a python variable and not just output to the screen like it does now.

Any pointers appreciated!

Thank you,

Pablo

# SOAP SERVICE
# Fetch the perl script that will request the users email.
# This service will return a name, email, and certificate.

var = "soap.pl"
pipe = subprocess.Popen(["perl", "./soap.pl", var], stdin = subprocess.PIPE)
pipe.stdin.write(var)
print "\n"
pipe.stdin.close()

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