Doc/library/contextlib.rst

:mod:`contextlib` --- Utilities for :keyword:`with`\ -statement contexts
========================================================================

.. module:: contextlib
   :synopsis: Utilities for with-statement contexts.

**Source code:** :source:`Lib/contextlib.py`

--------------

This module provides utilities for common tasks involving the :keyword:`with`
statement. For more information see also :ref:`typecontextmanager` and
:ref:`context-managers`.

Functions provided:


.. decorator:: contextmanager

   This function is a :term:`decorator` that can be used to define a factory
   function for :keyword:`with` statement context managers, without needing to
   create a class or separate :meth:`__enter__` and :meth:`__exit__` methods.

   A simple example (this is not recommended as a real way of generating HTML!)::

      from contextlib import contextmanager

      @contextmanager
      def tag(name):
          print("<%s>" % name)
          yield
          print("</%s>" % name)

      >>> with tag("h1"):
      ...    print("foo")
      ...
      <h1>
      foo
      </h1>

   The function being decorated must return a :term:`generator`-iterator when
   called. This iterator must yield exactly one value, which will be bound to
   the targets in the :keyword:`with` statement's :keyword:`as` clause, if any.

   At the point where the generator yields, the block nested in the :keyword:`with`
   statement is executed.  The generator is then resumed after the block is exited.
   If an unhandled exception occurs in the block, it is reraised inside the
   generator at the point where the yield occurred.  Thus, you can use a
   :keyword:`try`...\ :keyword:`except`...\ :keyword:`finally` statement to trap
   the error (if any), or ensure that some cleanup takes place. If an exception is
   trapped merely in order to log it or to perform some action (rather than to
   suppress it entirely), the generator must reraise that exception. Otherwise the
   generator context manager will indicate to the :keyword:`with` statement that
   the exception has been handled, and execution will resume with the statement
   immediately following the :keyword:`with` statement.

   :func:`contextmanager` uses :class:`ContextDecorator` so the context managers
   it creates can be used as decorators as well as in :keyword:`with` statements.
   When used as a decorator, a new generator instance is implicitly created on
   each function call (this allows the otherwise "one-shot" context managers
   created by :func:`contextmanager` to meet the requirement that context
   managers support multiple invocations in order to be used as decorators).

   .. versionchanged:: 3.2
      Use of :class:`ContextDecorator`.


.. function:: closing(thing)

   Return a context manager that closes *thing* upon completion of the block.  This
   is basically equivalent to::

      from contextlib import contextmanager

      @contextmanager
      def closing(thing):
          try:
              yield thing
          finally:
              thing.close()

   And lets you write code like this::

      from contextlib import closing
      from urllib.request import urlopen

      with closing(urlopen('http://www.python.org')) as page:
          for line in page:
              print(line)

   without needing to explicitly close ``page``.  Even if an error occurs,
   ``page.close()`` will be called when the :keyword:`with` block is exited.


.. class:: ContextDecorator()

   A base class that enables a context manager to also be used as a decorator.

   Context managers inheriting from ``ContextDecorator`` have to implement
   ``__enter__`` and ``__exit__`` as normal. ``__exit__`` retains its optional
   exception handling even when used as a decorator.

   ``ContextDecorator`` is used by :func:`contextmanager`, so you get this
   functionality automatically.

   Example of ``ContextDecorator``::

      from contextlib import ContextDecorator

      class mycontext(ContextDecorator):
          def __enter__(self):
              print('Starting')
              return self

          def __exit__(self, *exc):
              print('Finishing')
              return False

      >>> @mycontext()
      ... def function():
      ...     print('The bit in the middle')
      ...
      >>> function()
      Starting
      The bit in the middle
      Finishing

      >>> with mycontext():
      ...     print('The bit in the middle')
      ...
      Starting
      The bit in the middle
      Finishing

   This change is just syntactic sugar for any construct of the following form::

      def f():
          with cm():
              # Do stuff

   ``ContextDecorator`` lets you instead write::

      @cm()
      def f():
          # Do stuff

   It makes it clear that the ``cm`` applies to the whole function, rather than
   just a piece of it (and saving an indentation level is nice, too).

   Existing context managers that already have a base class can be extended by
   using ``ContextDecorator`` as a mixin class::

      from contextlib import ContextDecorator

      class mycontext(ContextBaseClass, ContextDecorator):
          def __enter__(self):
              return self

          def __exit__(self, *exc):
              return False

   .. note::
      As the decorated function must be able to be called multiple times, the
      underlying context manager must support use in multiple :keyword:`with`
      statements. If this is not the case, then the original construct with the
      explicit :keyword:`with` statement inside the function should be used.

   .. versionadded:: 3.2


.. seealso::

   :pep:`0343` - The "with" statement
      The specification, background, and examples for the Python :keyword:`with`
      statement.