How do I initialise a Python file_object without opening a file

Question

I need to declare a file_object globally and much later, open a file and in so doing store a value to it.

To explain: Python allows me to declare a string variable outside of any class or function by simply declaring:

stringName = str()

and then much later assigning a value EG:

stringName = 'this is a string'

I need to do much the same with a file_object to which I can much later assign a value EG:

fileObject = ????????

and later

fileObject = open('fileName', mode, bufsize)

How do I get this past Python's syntax filters?

Answer 1

You can define the variable as None and then use it in your local function via global :

file = None

def func():
    global file
    file = open(fname, 'w+')