[Axiom-mail] \begin{axiom} latex on windows

[Ryan Krauss]

I found this example on the axiom-developer mailing list from about a 
year ago:

 \begin{axiom-input}
 R1:=matrix([[cos a, sin a, 0],[-sin a, cos a, 0],[0, 0, 1]])
 \end{axiom-input}
 Next we define a rotation around the Y axis by a rotation angle of b 
 \begin{axiom-input}
 R2:=matrix([[cos b, 0, -sin b],[0, 1, 0],[sin b, 0, cos b]])
 \end{axiom-input}
 The we compose them (order is important) to form the single
 rotation equivalent to first rotating around X, then around
 the new, displaced Y. 
 \begin{axiom-input}
 R:=R1*R2
 \end{axiom-input}

I would very much like to be able to write LaTeX documents like this on 
Windows XP.  Has anyone done this?

If not, I am a bit of a Python programmer and I was thinking one way to 
make it work would be to have Python parse the tex file and take 
whatever is between the \begin{axiom} and \end{axiom} statements and 
create an input file for axiom with the output set by the file to go to 
numbered .tex files.  Python would then replace the \begin{axiom}... 
with \begin{equation} \input{....###} (i.e. the output files from axiom).

But in order to make something like this work, Python needs to be able 
to call axiom and tell it to run the script (and possibly close axiom 
afterward).  Is there a way to do this on Windows?  Can it be done with 
a dos command?

Is there an easier way?

Thanks for your thoughts,

Ryan