os.stat fails when called on a file that is pending delete but is still in the directory listing.

This in turn causes os.path.exists to return the wrong result.

Attached is a test case demonstrating this broken behavior.

How does it fail? Please paste the precise exception.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "stat-bug.py", line 12, in <module>
    print('stat', os.stat(pathname))
PermissionError: [Error 5] Access is denied: '\\Users\\Jeremy\\test.tmp'

Why do you think the behavior is broken? It looks right to me - it's not possible to get file information for a file that is scheduled for deletion.

ISTM that rather os.path.exists has non-intuitive behavior; it shouldn't infer from the PermissionError that the file does not exist, but that it is not able to tell.

However, this is not a bug, but documented behavior, see

http://docs.python.org/library/os.path.html#os.path.exists

> Why do you think the behavior is broken? It looks right to me - it's not possible to get file information for a file that is scheduled for deletion.

However you can when using MSVCRT's stat() function or even
FindFirstFile directly.

Had a to-and-fro on IRC with RDM who highlighted that an inconsistency between os.listdir and os.path.exists (the case here) is, at least, undesirable. As it stands, our os.exists on os.stat mechanism will fail because any attempt to get any kind of handle via CreateFile will fail once the file is unlinked. However, FindFirstFile succeeds (hence os.listdir).

I'll put forward a patch to see whether it's worth pursuing.