Professional Python

Chapter 2Context Managers

Context managers are the first cousins of decorators. Like their kindred, they are tools for wrapping code around other code. However, whereas decorators wrap defined blocks of code (such as functions or classes), context managers wrap arbitrary, free-form blocks of code.

In almost every other respect, the purposes of context managers and decorators are equivalent (and, it is often the case that APIs are written to allow you to use either, as discussed later in this chapter).

This chapter introduces and explains the concept of context managers, showing how and when to use them, and enumerating the different ways of handling exceptions that may occur within context blocks.

What Is a Context Manager?

A context manager is an object that wraps an arbitrary block of code. Context managers ensure that setup is consistently performed when the context manager is entered, and that teardown is consistently performed when the context manager is exited.

It is important to note early that the exit is guaranteed. If a context manager is entered, it will, by definition, be exited. This holds true even if the internal code raises an exception. In fact, the context manager's exit code is given an opportunity to handle such exceptions if it sees fit to do so (although it is not obligated to do so).

Therefore, context managers perform a very similar function to the try, except, and finally keywords. They are often a useful mechanism to encapsulate boilerplate try-except ...