The result/result2/result3/result4 API looks quite silly by today's standards, if you don't mind me saying.

Do what os.stat does. result() should return an object that:

• for backwards compatibility, acts like a tuple of the first two elements
• has everything accessible as attributes.

Such a type can be defined at the C level using Struct Sequence.
In Python 2 this API is private; use a regular namedtuple subclass?

Deprecate result2/result3/result4 (but keep them around indefinitely).