Currently inspect.stack() returns a list of 6-tuples. I suggest to make it return a list of named tuples, so code that only needs one tuple element can get it by name.

Current behaviour:
% ./python -c 'import inspect; print(inspect.stack()[0])'
(<frame object at 0x157fb38>, '<string>', 1, '<module>', None, None)

Suggested behaviour:
% ./python -c 'import inspect; print(inspect.stack()[0])'
FrameInfo(frame=<frame object at 0xddab38>, filename='<string>', lineno=1, function='<module>', code_context=None, index=None)

+1

Why did you set stage to 'needs patch'? One is already attached.

Add versionchanged per review.

This patch looks good to me with the exception that "versionchanged" should be 3.4.

Fixed that in v3.

Should a test be added to or changed in test_inspect? Line 163 has a test_stack method that calls inspect.stack.

I suppose asserting the type wouldn't hurt, but I don't consider it that important:

--- a/Lib/test/test_inspect.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_inspect.py
@@ -164,12 +164,16 @@ class TestInterpreterStack(IsTestBase):
         self.assertTrue(len(mod.st) >= 5)
         self.assertEqual(revise(*mod.st[0][1:]),
              (modfile, 16, 'eggs', ['    st = inspect.stack()\n'], 0))
+        self.assertIsInstance(mod.st[0], inspect.FrameInfo)
         self.assertEqual(revise(*mod.st[1][1:]),
              (modfile, 9, 'spam', ['    eggs(b + d, c + f)\n'], 0))
+        self.assertIsInstance(mod.st[1], inspect.FrameInfo)
         self.assertEqual(revise(*mod.st[2][1:]),
              (modfile, 43, 'argue', ['            spam(a, b, c)\n'], 0))
+        self.assertIsInstance(mod.st[2], inspect.FrameInfo)
         self.assertEqual(revise(*mod.st[3][1:]),
              (modfile, 39, 'abuse', ['        self.argue(a, b, c)\n'], 0))
+        self.assertIsInstance(mod.st[3], inspect.FrameInfo)

TestGetClosureVars builds the named tuples directly and compares them. For example:

        expected = inspect.ClosureVars(nonlocal_vars, global_vars,
                                       builtin_vars, unbound_names)
        self.assertEqual(inspect.getclosurevars(f(_arg)), expected)

Doing this for FrameInfo is awkward because we don't have a frame object to construct
the named tuple with.

Terry J. Reedy wrote on Sat, Jan 05, 2013 at 01:33:50 +0000:

Should a test be added to or changed in test_inspect? Line 163 has
a test_stack method that calls inspect.stack.

Makes sense; added a test that tests named attribute access. Thanks for
the pointer.

New changeset d03730abd2f6 by Antoine Pitrou in branch 'default':
Issue bpo-16808: inspect.stack() now returns a named tuple instead of a tuple.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/d03730abd2f6

It seems like this patch had been overlooked. I refreshed it for 3.5, added a couple tests, and pushed it. Thank you, Daniel!