3.3 adds the *xattr() extended attribute functions on Linux. shutil implements a new internal function(_copyxattr) which copies these extended attributes. However, it's only used in shutil.copy2(). I assert that shutil.copystat() should also preserve this metadata. (Which, having subsumed this functionality, means that shutil.copy2() would no longer need to explicitly call it.)

Also: it might be worth considering taking the same approach _copyxattr uses for the other conditional functionality (see "def lookup" inside copystat). Computing platform support at import time instead of runtime looks cleaner.

Georg, how much of this (if any) do you consider a 3.3 bugfix?

First patch.

The patch looks good enough. Not sure if we should write Linux though. I sincerely hope we’ll support xattrs on other OSes soonish.

Did you catch Georg somewhere whether this can still go in? Would be nice as xattrs are new to 3.3. Changing this in 3.4 would be rather unfortunate.

Yeah, good to go. But please re-insert a blank line in the test suite changes after the end of the method.

Georg: done.

Hynek: You must forgive me, I'm a recovering Windows programmer. I thought extended attributes were a Linux-only thing. Can you tell me what other platforms they are available on? And/or suggest some alternate language?

See open bpo-12978.

Hynek: You must forgive me, I'm a recovering Windows programmer. I thought extended attributes were a Linux-only thing. Can you tell me what other platforms they are available on? And/or suggest some alternate language?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xattr has a list. The question what’s most
user friendly. The best way for the user would be your text. However
we’ll have to dig through the docs once we support xattr on more platforms.

However as I see it, we’re deep down this path already anyway
(http://docs.python.org/dev/library/os.html?highlight=xattr#linux-extended-attributes),
so I guess we can keep your docs.

One nit: I’d swap your quoted "extended attributes" to unquoted but
linked to the doc above.

New changeset 5f62c317c202 by Larry Hastings in branch 'default':

• Issue bpo-15238: shutil.copystat now copies Linux "extended attributes".
  http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/5f62c317c202

The new test fails on the Fedora bot:

http://buildbot.python.org/all/builders/AMD64%20Fedora%20without%20threads%203.x/builds/2881/steps/test/logs/stdio

======================================================================
FAIL: test_copyxattr (test.test_shutil.TestShutil)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/buildbot/buildarea/3.x.krah-fedora/build/Lib/test/test_shutil.py", line 420, in test_copyxattr
    self.assertEqual(os.listxattr(src), ['user.the_value'])
AssertionError: Lists differ: ['security.selinux', 'user.the... != ['user.the_value']

First differing element 0:
security.selinux
user.the_value

First list contains 1 additional elements.
First extra element 1:
user.the_value

• ['security.selinux', 'user.the_value']
  + ['user.the_value']

You can’t just compare the xattr because some (like security.*) can be
only copied as root. IIRC they come from SELinux.

Hynek, it's clear you understand this far better than I do. Could I get you to fix the Fedora buildbot problem, etc, etc?

New changeset 265e36e277f3 by Hynek Schlawack in branch 'default':
bpo-15238: Fix xattr related shutil.copystat tests
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/265e36e277f3

I removed the check for good as we check for the existence of the xattr in the next line. However we check the destination now whether the xattrs have been copied. ;) Fedora is green again.