new_contents: """
  Copyright [2009-2019] EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute
  Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
  you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
  You may obtain a copy of the License at
       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
  limitations under the License.
  """
  
  # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  import os
  import sys
  import subprocess
  import argparse
  
  # ------------------------------------- GLOBALS ------------------------------------
  
  LSF_GROUP = "/family_srch"
  MEMORY = 8000
  
  # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  def checkout_family(rfam_acc):
      """
      Checks out a family from Rfam based on a valid Rfam accession.
  
      rfam_acc: A valid Rfam accession
  
      return:
      """
  
      cmd = "rfco.pl %s" % rfam_acc
  
      subprocess.call(cmd, shell=True)
  
      # add some checks here
  
  # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  if __name__== '__main__':
  
      pass
subject: Add function to checkout a family