diff --git a/pep-0278.txt b/pep-0278.txt
index 81e39eefe..80510ee07 100644
--- a/pep-0278.txt
+++ b/pep-0278.txt
@@ -169,8 +169,15 @@ Rationale
     newline support is not enabled then file objects do not have the "newlines"
     attribute, so testing whether the current Python has it can be done with a
     simple
-    if hasattr(sys.stdout, 'newlines'):
-    	print 'We have universal newline support'
+
+        if hasattr(open, 'newlines'):
+            print 'We have universal newline support'
+
+    Note that this test uses the open() function rather than the file
+    type so that it won't fail for versions of Python where the file
+    type was not available (the file type was added to the built-in
+    namespace in the same release as the universal newline feature was
+    added).
 
     
 Reference Implementation