Thanks for the feedback terry. Do you think it would be helpful to work through some of the other commonly used functions in OS, adding condensed explanations of exceptions which can be raised? In general, it seems quite useful for users to be able to figure out the exceptions in which they may need to account for when using each of the functions. 

Also, should the naming convention be "method" or "function"? The two roughly refer to the same thing, but as far as I'm aware, the convention in Python is to refer to them as "functions". I'm  used to calling them "methods" from my prior experience with OOP, so that's why I did so in my initial condensed description. On the docs for OS, there seems to be a few instances where the term "method" is used. 

Personally, I don't mind the usage of either term, at the end of the day it's just semantics. But for the purposes of documentation, consistency seems preferable. Should I create a PR for replacing the mentions of "method" with "function"? Since it's quite minor and in the same OS.rst file, should I link it to this issue instead of creating a new one?