os.stat()’s follow_symlinks is a bit ambigously described

Documentation

There are numerous functions which take a pathname and and argument like follow_symlinks.

For most of these, the argument follow_symlinks is not further explained in the function itself, but people will rather have to resort to https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.html#files-and-directories where things are rather exactly described.

However, the description of os.stat() has:

This function normally follows symlinks; to stat a symlink add the argument follow_symlinks=False, or use lstat().

Which is however only half correct, because what it actually means is:

When the last component of the path is a symbolic link, the function normally follows it. Symbolic links in the path that are not the last component, are always followed.

Similar, the paragraph below for windows, also uses wording that implies any name-surrogate reparse points, i.e. not only if the last pathname component is one.
No idea what Windows does, but if that's also wrong, it should be corrected accordingly. Also in the "Changed in" entry for that.

AFAICS, the other functions of os have it correctly described (by simply not describing it).

Thanks,
Chris.

Comece pela documentação de os.stat() e pela seção vinculada Files and Directories. Esclareça que follow_symlinks se aplica ao último componente do nome do caminho e, em seguida, verifique e corrija, se necessário, a redação correspondente para Windows e a entrada Changed in; a documentação deve descrever ambos os comportamentos com precisão.