Below is the relevant snippet from pyport.h.  There are two reasons that
Py_LOCAL_INLINE doesn't actually emit the "inline" keyword (unless
compiling with MSC).  

First, "configure" does not have code to test the compiler and define
USE_INLINE if appropriate.

Second, the code undefines USE_INLINE even if defined! (oops? ;) )

The snippet is replicated with slightly different names near the top of
_sre.c.

#undef USE_INLINE /* XXX - set via configure? */

#if defined(_MSC_VER)
#if defined(PY_LOCAL_AGGRESSIVE)
/* enable more aggressive optimization for visual studio */
#pragma optimize("agtw", on)
#endif
/* ignore warnings if the compiler decides not to inline a function */
#pragma warning(disable: 4710)
/* fastest possible local call under MSVC */
#define Py_LOCAL(type) static type __fastcall
#define Py_LOCAL_INLINE(type) static __inline type __fastcall
#elif defined(USE_INLINE)
#define Py_LOCAL(type) static type
#define Py_LOCAL_INLINE(type) static inline type
#else
#define Py_LOCAL(type) static type
#define Py_LOCAL_INLINE(type) static type
#endif