os.stat on Windows "nul" file

Why can't I call `os.stat` on the special Windows file `nul`? ``` >>> import os >>> os.stat('nul') Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> WindowsError: [Error 87] The parameter is incorrect: 'nul' ``` I can open it: ``` >>> f = open('nul', 'r') >>> f.read(10) '' ``` I was hoping to check for special files like `/dev/null` and `nul` in a cross-platform way with `stat.S_ISCHR` and was surprised to find that I can't stat a file that I can open.