Pipe Ipython magic output to a variable?

Question

I want to run a bash script in my ipython Notebook and save the output as a string in a python variable for further manipulation. Basically I want to pipe the output of the

Answer 1

Notice the difference in the variable type between @MattDMo (SList) and @oLas (str) answers:

In [1]: output = !whoami

In [2]: type(output)
Out[2]: IPython.utils.text.SList

In [3]: %%bash --out output
   ...: whoami

In [4]: type(output)
Out[4]: str