Simple command piping in Python

pipe.py

# https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51756938/how-to-make-a-generic-method-in-python-to-execute-multiple-piped-shell-commands
import shlex
import subprocess

def run_pipe(cmds):
    pipe = subprocess.DEVNULL
    procs = []
    for cmd in cmds:
        proc = subprocess.Popen(cmd, stdin=pipe, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
        procs.append(proc)
        pipe = proc.stdout
    stdout, _ = proc.communicate()
    for proc in procs:
        proc.wait()
    for proc in procs:
        if proc.returncode:
            raise subprocess.CalledProcessError(proc.returncode, proc.cmd)
    return stdout

def run_pipe_text(cmds):
    return run_pipe([shlex.split(cmd) for cmd in cmds.split('|')])

if __name__ == "__main__":
    print(run_pipe_text("echo abcd | tr ac __"))