I have just discovered that the syntax with file(name, 'w') as f: do_something(f)
does not close the file at the end of the with statement! On the contrary with open(name, 'w') as f: do_something(f) works fine. The docs say "When opening a file, it’s preferable to use open() instead of invoking this constructor directly." but perhaps they should mention why :( -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list