[Numpy-discussion] Distutils - way to check validity of compiler flag?

Hi, I'm sorry to ask this, I guess I should know - but is there any way in disutils or numpy distutils to check whether a compiler flag is valid before doing extension building? I'm thinking of something like this, to check whether the compiler can handle '-fopenmp': have_openmp = check_compiler_flag('-fopenmp') flags = ['-fopenmp'] if have_openmp else [] ext = Extension('myext', ['myext.c'], extra_compile_args = flags, extra_link_args = flags]) I guess this would have to go somewhere in the main setup() call in order to pick up custom compilers on the command line and such? Cheers, Matthew