Catching exception in context manager __enter__()

Like this:

import sys

class Context(object):
    def __enter__(self):
        try:
            raise Exception("Oops in __enter__")
        except:
            # Swallow exception if __exit__ returns a True value
            if self.__exit__(*sys.exc_info()):
                pass
            else:
                raise


    def __exit__(self, e_typ, e_val, trcbak):
        print "Now it's running"


with Context():
    pass

To let the program continue on its merry way without executing the context block you need to inspect the context object inside the context block and only do the important stuff if __enter__ succeeded.

class Context(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.enter_ok = True

    def __enter__(self):
        try:
            raise Exception("Oops in __enter__")
        except:
            if self.__exit__(*sys.exc_info()):
                self.enter_ok = False
            else:
                raise
        return self

    def __exit__(self, e_typ, e_val, trcbak):
        print "Now this runs twice"
        return True


with Context() as c:
    if c.enter_ok:
        print "Only runs if enter succeeded"

print "Execution continues"

As far as I can determine, you can't skip the with-block entirely. And note that this context now swallows all exceptions in it. If you wish not to swallow exceptions if __enter__ succeeds, check self.enter_ok in __exit__ and return False if it's True.

No. If there is the chance that an exception could occur in __enter__() then you will need to catch it yourself and call a helper function that contains the cleanup code.