[Python-Dev] stat return types

[Martin von Loewis]

Nich Mathewson has developed a patch that allows to access stat fields
by name, rather than by tuple index, while preserving backwards
compatibility, see

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=305470&aid=462296&group_id=5470

One issue is non-posix stat implementations, which currently live in
riscos and mac. Any comments on the patch are appreciated, in
particular with regard to the following question:

- should we attempt to modify those modules even though we cannot test
  the modifications, or should we accept that field access will not be
  possible on these platforms until somebody with platform access
  fixes them?
- should the patch go into 2.2 (personally, I'd like to see it
  integrated)?

Regards,
Martin