Is a with on open always necessary?

Wed Jan 25 12:12:59 EST 2012

On 1/20/12 07:44 , Andrea Crotti wrote:
> I normally didn't bother too much when reading from files, and for example
> I always did a
>> content = open(filename).readlines()
>> But now I have the doubt that it's not a good idea, does the file
> handler stays
> open until the interpreter quits?
>> So maybe doing a
>> with open(filename) as f:
> contents = f.readlines()
>> is always a better idea??

It's a better idea when possible.
Sometimes the descriptor is opened in one method and closed in another. 
 In that case, "with" isn't possible.
--rich