This is when using purify, fpectl.so fails to build.
After this an exception is raised in distutils.

Here's some of the interesting bits.

The attached file should have everyhing:

Instrumenting: fpectl.so Done.
WARNING: removing "fpectl" since importing it failed
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./setup.py", line 796, in ?
    main()
  File "./setup.py", line 790, in main
    scripts = ['Tools/scripts/pydoc']
...
  File
"/space/purify/python/python/dist/2.2/Lib/distutils/cmd.py",
line 107, in __getattr__
    raise AttributeError, attr
AttributeError: _built_objects

In order to get this far, I also had to include this
patch to Python/dynload_shlib.c:93:


<    PyErr_SetString(PyExc_ImportError, dlerror());
---
>    const char* err = dlerror();
>    if (! err)
>        err = "";
>    PyErr_SetString(PyExc_ImportError, err);

This patch should not be applied.  It's just necessary
for purify, AFAIK.

This problem can be duplicated outside of purify with
the following steps (on Linux):

    configure
    make
    # stop make after fpectl.o
    chmod 000 build/*/fpe*
    make
    # exception should be raised

Purify version is 2002a.06.00 Proto 38 on 
Solaris 8/Sparc.