What is the python “with” statement designed for?

Question

I came across the Python with statement for the first time today. I\'ve been using Python lightly for several months and didn\'t even know of its existence! G

Answer 1

points 1, 2, and 3 being reasonably well covered:

4: it is relatively new, only available in python2.6+ (or python2.5 using from __future__ import with_statement)