--- a/Doc/lib/libos.tex	Wed Oct 16 17:51:38 2002 +0000
+++ b/Doc/lib/libos.tex	Wed Oct 16 18:27:39 2002 +0000
@@ -854,9 +854,10 @@
 \member{st_ctime}
 (time of most recent content modification or metadata change).
 
-\versionchanged [The time values are floats, measuring
-  seconds. Fractions of a second may be reported if the system
-  supports that]{2.3}
+\versionchanged [If \function{stat_float_times} returns true, the time
+values are floats, measuring seconds. Fractions of a second may be
+reported if the system supports that. On Mac OS, the times are always
+floats. See \function{stat_float_times} for further discussion. ]{2.3}
 
 On some Unix systems (such as Linux), the following attributes may
 also be available:
@@ -899,6 +900,32 @@
 [Added access to values as attributes of the returned object]{2.2}
 \end{funcdesc}
 
+\begin{funcdesc}{stat_float_times}{\optional{newvalue}}
+Determine whether \class{stat_result} represents time stamps as float
+objects.  If newval is True, future calls to stat() return floats, if
+it is False, future calls return ints.  If newval is omitted, return
+the current setting.
+
+For compatibility with older Python versions, accessing
+\class{stat_result} as a tuple always returns integers. For
+compatibility with Python 2.2, accessing the time stamps by field name
+also returns integers. Applications that want to determine the
+fractions of a second in a time stamp can use this function to have
+time stamps represented as floats. Whether they will actually observe
+non-zero fractions depends on the system.
+
+Future Python releases will change the default of this settings;
+applications that cannot deal with floating point time stamps can then
+use this function to turn the feature off.
+
+It is recommended that this setting is only changed at program startup
+time in the \var{__main__} module; libraries should never change this
+setting. If an application uses a library that works incorrectly if
+floating point time stamps are processed, this application should turn
+the feature off until the library has been corrected.
+
+\end{funcdesc}
+
 \begin{funcdesc}{statvfs}{path}
 Perform a \cfunction{statvfs()} system call on the given path.  The
 return value is an object whose attributes describe the filesystem on