This is admittedly an old question, hence some of the answers are outdated.
In the current version of the mock library there is a convenience function designed for precisely this purpose. Here’s how it works:
>>> from mock import mock_open
>>> m = mock_open()
>>> with patch('__main__.open', m, create=True):
... with open('foo', 'w') as h:
... h.write('some stuff')
...
>>> m.mock_calls
[call('foo', 'w'),
call().__enter__(),
call().write('some stuff'),
call().__exit__(None, None, None)]
>>> m.assert_called_once_with('foo', 'w')
>>> handle = m()
>>> handle.write.assert_called_once_with('some stuff')
Documentation is here.