title: Modified time using os.stat in Python gets lower when copying files
body: <p>The issue I am running into is part of using os.stat on a path (Take C:\myfile1.txt for example). When I run os.stat on this file and take the 9th element in the resulting list I get the modified time in the form of some numbers (ex. 1348167977). </p>
  
  <p>NOTE: I'm not sure how these numbers are calculated. </p>
  
  <p>When I create C:\myfile1.txt it has some number like the example above. If I create another file C:\myfile2.txt, it gets a new number representing the modified time which is higher than C:\myfile1.txt (this is like I would expect). I also have a third file C:\myfile3.txt which is created last.</p>
  
  <p>The issue comes if I copy C:\myfile2.txt and overwrite C:\myfile3.txt with the resulting copy file, the modified time as shown by os.stat on the new C:\myfile3.txt is less than C:\myfile1.txt. Why does this happen? The modified time for C:\myfile3.txt should be the highest of all or at least equal to C:\myfile2.txt.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks for you answers, I hope I explained this well enough.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT: </p>
  
  <p>Here's some sample code to test what I describe. Sometimes it works sometimes the numbers are all the same if you rerun it at a different time. I think I just don't fully understand the MTIME that I'm outputting.</p>
  
  <pre><code>import os
  import shutil
  import time
  
  myfile1 = open("C:\\myfile1.txt", 'wt')
  myfile1.close()
  time.sleep(10)
  myfile2 = open("C:\\myfile2.txt", 'wt')
  myfile2.close()
  time.sleep(10)
  myfile2 = open("C:\\myfile3.txt", 'wt')
  myfile2.close()
  
  shutil.copyfile("C:\\myfile2.txt", "C:\\myfile3.txt")
  
  modified_time_first = (os.stat("C:\\myfile1.txt")[9])
  modified_time_second = (os.stat("C:\\myfile2.txt")[9])
  modified_time_third = (os.stat("C:\\myfile3.txt")[9])
  
  print "The first files modified time is: "
  print modified_time_first
  print ""
  
  print "The second files modified time is: " 
  print modified_time_second
  print ""
  
  print "The third files modified time is: " 
  print modified_time_third
  print ""
  </code></pre>