diff -r ae047ebe10f9 Doc/library/argparse.rst
--- a/Doc/library/argparse.rst	Wed Dec 11 17:21:13 2013 -0600
+++ b/Doc/library/argparse.rst	Thu Dec 12 05:54:06 2013 -0800
@@ -1648,19 +1648,21 @@
 FileType objects
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
-.. class:: FileType(mode='r', bufsize=-1, encoding=None, errors=None)
+.. class:: FileType(mode='r', bufsize=-1, encoding=None, errors=None, expanduser=False)
 
    The :class:`FileType` factory creates objects that can be passed to the type
    argument of :meth:`ArgumentParser.add_argument`.  Arguments that have
    :class:`FileType` objects as their type will open command-line arguments as
-   files with the requested modes, buffer sizes, encodings and error handling
+   files with the requested modes, buffer sizes, encodings and error handling.
+   If expanduser is true then the filename will  be expanded by :meth:`os.path.expanduser`.
    (see the :func:`open` function for more details)::
 
       >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
       >>> parser.add_argument('--raw', type=argparse.FileType('wb', 0))
       >>> parser.add_argument('out', type=argparse.FileType('w', encoding='UTF-8'))
-      >>> parser.parse_args(['--raw', 'raw.dat', 'file.txt'])
-      Namespace(out=<_io.TextIOWrapper name='file.txt' mode='w' encoding='UTF-8'>, raw=<_io.FileIO name='raw.dat' mode='wb'>)
+      >>> parser.add_argument('in', type=argparse.FileType('r', expanduser=True))
+      >>> parser.parse_args(['--raw', 'raw.dat', 'file.txt', '~/in'])
+      Namespace(out=<_io.TextIOWrapper name='file.txt' mode='w' encoding='UTF-8'>, raw=<_io.FileIO name='raw.dat' mode='wb'>, in=<_io.TextIOWrapper name='/home/username/test' mode='r' encoding='UTF-8'>)
 
    FileType objects understand the pseudo-argument ``'-'`` and automatically
    convert this into ``sys.stdin`` for readable :class:`FileType` objects and
diff -r ae047ebe10f9 Lib/argparse.py
--- a/Lib/argparse.py	Wed Dec 11 17:21:13 2013 -0600
+++ b/Lib/argparse.py	Thu Dec 12 05:54:06 2013 -0800
@@ -1145,13 +1145,16 @@
             builtin open() function.
         - errors -- A string indicating how encoding and decoding errors are to
             be handled. Accepts the same value as the builtin open() function.
+        - expanduser -- A boolean specifying if os.path.expanduser should be called on the path
+            before opening
     """
 
-    def __init__(self, mode='r', bufsize=-1, encoding=None, errors=None):
+    def __init__(self, mode='r', bufsize=-1, encoding=None, errors=None, expanduser=False):
         self._mode = mode
         self._bufsize = bufsize
         self._encoding = encoding
         self._errors = errors
+        self._expanduser = expanduser
 
     def __call__(self, string):
         # the special argument "-" means sys.std{in,out}
@@ -1163,6 +1166,9 @@
             else:
                 msg = _('argument "-" with mode %r') % self._mode
                 raise ValueError(msg)
+        else:
+            if self._expanduser:
+                string = _os.path.expanduser(string)
 
         # all other arguments are used as file names
         try:
diff -r ae047ebe10f9 Lib/test/test_argparse.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_argparse.py	Wed Dec 11 17:21:13 2013 -0600
+++ b/Lib/test/test_argparse.py	Thu Dec 12 05:54:06 2013 -0800
@@ -1588,6 +1588,39 @@
                 type('foo')
                 m.assert_called_with('foo', *args)
 
+class TestFileTypeExpandUser(TestCase):
+    """ Test that tilde is expanded correctly """
+
+    def test_open_tilde(self):
+        FT = argparse.FileType
+        foo = '~/fo~o'
+        expandedfoo = os.path.expanduser(foo)
+        cases = [
+            # Expand
+            (FT('rb', expanduser=True), expandedfoo, ('rb', -1, None, None)),
+            (FT('w', 1, expanduser=True), expandedfoo, ('w', 1, None, None)),
+            (FT('w', errors='replace', expanduser=True), expandedfoo,('w', -1, None, 'replace')),
+            (FT('wb', encoding='big5', expanduser=True), expandedfoo, ('wb', -1, 'big5', None)),
+            (FT('w', 0, 'l1', 'strict', expanduser=True), expandedfoo, ('w', 0, 'l1', 'strict')),
+           # Don't expand
+            (FT('rb', expanduser=False), foo, ('rb', -1, None, None)),
+            (FT('w', 1, expanduser=False), foo, ('w', 1, None, None)),
+            (FT('w', errors='replace', expanduser=False), foo,('w', -1, None, 'replace')),
+            (FT('wb', encoding='big5', expanduser=False), foo, ('wb', -1, 'big5', None)),
+            (FT('w', 0, 'l1', 'strict', expanduser=False), foo, ('w', 0, 'l1', 'strict')),
+            # default
+            (FT('rb'), foo, ('rb', -1, None, None)),
+            (FT('w', 1), foo, ('w', 1, None, None)),
+            (FT('w', errors='replace'), foo, ('w', -1, None, 'replace')),
+            (FT('wb', encoding='big5'), foo, ('wb', -1, 'big5', None)),
+            (FT('w', 0, 'l1', 'strict'), foo, ('w', 0, 'l1', 'strict')),
+            ]
+        with mock.patch('builtins.open') as m:
+            for type, targetfilename, args in cases:
+                type(foo)
+                m.assert_called_with(targetfilename, *args)
+
+
 
 class TestTypeCallable(ParserTestCase):
     """Test some callables as option/argument types"""