Create helper functions for I/O to files in the working directory
This simplifies some code and gives us a single place to add I/O
filters.
\.elc$
\.orig$
\.rej$
~$
\.so$
\.pyc$
\.swp$
\.prof$
^tests/.*\.err$
^build/
^dist/
^doc/.*\.[0-9](\.(x|ht)ml)?$
^MANIFEST$
^\.pc/
^patches/
^mercurial/__version__.py$