[3.12] gh-107959: clarify Unix-availability of `os.lchmod()` (GH-107960) (GH-113066)

gh-107959: clarify Unix-availability of `os.lchmod()` (GH-107960)

POSIX specifies that implementations are not required to support changing the
file mode of symbolic links, but may do so.
Consequently, `lchmod()` is not part of POSIX (but mentioned for implementations
which do support the above).

The current wording of the availability of `os.lchmod()` is rather vague and
improved to clearly tell which POSIX/Unix/BSD-like support the function in
general (those that support changing the file mode of symbolic links).
Further, some examples of major implementations are added.

Data for the BSDs taken from their online manpages.

(cherry picked from commit f14e3d59c955fb3cf89e5241727ec566164dcf42)

Signed-off-by: Christoph Anton Mitterer <mail@christoph.anton.mitterer.name>
Co-authored-by: Christoph Anton Mitterer <mail@christoph.anton.mitterer.name>
Co-authored-by: Adam Turner <9087854+AA-Turner@users.noreply.github.com>

diff --git a/Doc/library/os.rst b/Doc/library/os.rst
index bf97dfd1f2f6b9bfc4a0966c28fa9b205649c781..4507fbc8164dc86c16d1b8110b13302aa3246975 100644 (file)
--- a/Doc/library/os.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/os.rst
@@ -2160,9 +2160,12 @@ features:
    for possible values of *mode*.  As of Python 3.3, this is equivalent to
    ``os.chmod(path, mode, follow_symlinks=False)``.
 
+   ``lchmod()`` is not part of POSIX, but Unix implementations may have it if
+   changing the mode of symbolic links is supported.
+
    .. audit-event:: os.chmod path,mode,dir_fd os.lchmod
 
-   .. availability:: Unix.
+   .. availability:: Unix, not Linux, FreeBSD >= 1.3, NetBSD >= 1.3, not OpenBSD
 
    .. versionchanged:: 3.6
       Accepts a :term:`path-like object`.