How to handle both `with open(…)` and `sys.stdout` nicely?

Question

Often I need to output data either to file or, if file is not specified, to stdout. I use the following snippet:

if target:
    with open(target, \'w\') as h         


        

Answer 1

import contextlib
import sys

with contextlib.ExitStack() as stack:
    h = stack.enter_context(open(target, 'w')) if target else sys.stdout
    h.write(content)

Just two extra lines if you're using Python 3.3 or higher: one line for the extra import and one line for the stack.enter_context.