autoconf-style checking for installed libs with DistUtils

[John J. Lee]

Michael Ströder <michael at stroeder.com> writes:

> Is it possible to probe for installed libs with DistUtils?
> 
> I'd like to automatically search for optional libs and adjust C
> compiler switchers before starting the build of a the extension module.

Unfortunately, great though it is, distutils can be a bit hard to
customize.  I remember having trouble getting extra gcc switches in,
and getting data put where it needed to go.  Generally, you do
whatever you like before calling setup(), to figure out library paths
and such.  I haven't heard of any autoconf-like facilities having been
added.  If you have a particular problem, try asking about that.

I wonder if SCons (pure-Python) could help in some way with this kind
of stuff?  It *does* have some (newish, I think) autoconfiguration
code, but I don't know if it has any distutils support.


John