diff -r 8635825b9734 Lib/test/test_argparse.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_argparse.py	Wed May 02 20:51:59 2012 +0200
+++ b/Lib/test/test_argparse.py	Wed May 02 20:51:35 2012 -0400
@@ -1462,6 +1462,20 @@
     ]
 
 
+class TestFileTypeDefaults(TempDirMixin, ParserTestCase):
+    def setUp(self):
+        super(TestFileTypeDefaults, self).setUp()
+        file = open(os.path.join(self.temp_dir, 'good'), 'w')
+        file.write('good')
+        file.close()
+
+    argument_signatures = [
+        Sig('-c', type=argparse.FileType('r'), default='no-file.txt'),
+    ]
+    failures = ['']
+    successes = [('-c good', NS(c=RFile('good')))]
+
+
 class TestFileTypeRB(TempDirMixin, ParserTestCase):
     """Test the FileType option/argument type for reading files"""