Python 2.5

setup.py mangles LDFLAGS and CPPFLAGS via:

env_val = re.sub(r'(^|\s+)-(-|(?!%s))' % arg_name[1], '', env_val)

This causes '-L/path/to/foo -R/path/to/bar' to become '-L/path/to/fooR/path/to/bar', which obviously doesn't work. The fix is simple - eat non-whitespace after the unrecognized option:

env_val = re.sub(r'(^|\s+)-(-|(?!%s))\S+' % arg_name[1], '', env_val)

Or I could get the regexp correct and eat _option_ non-whitespace...

env_val = re.sub(r'(^|\s+)-(-|(?!%s))\S*' % arg_name[1], '', env_val)

This was fixed in r57389 by georg.brandl by changing the replacement
string '' to ' ' (turning the option into a non-option).

Steps to reproduce this on Ubuntu Feisty, before that revision, were:
$ mkdir banana
$ sudo mv /usr/include/sqlite3.h banana/
$ make clean && ./configure && make
[...]
 Failed to find the necessary bits to build these modules:
_sqlite3          bsddb185          sunaudiodev    
[...]
$ make clean && CPPFLAGS=-Ibanana ./configure && make
Failed to find the necessary bits to build these modules:
bsddb185          sunaudiodev                      
$ make clean && CPPFLAGS=-Ibanana\ -Rmango ./configure && make
 Failed to find the necessary bits to build these modules:
_sqlite3          bsddb185          sunaudiodev

Yes, not it works ok!

Thanks John for the testing example, and Carson for the report.

Bloody fingers. I meant that *now" it works ok.