Checking dependencies with distutils

[Etienne Marcel]

Hello,

I would like to know if there is something in distutils (or in Python
stdlib) which allow me to check for dependencies (shared libraries,
headers or any other progs) before building/installing ?

I am aware of this nice utility :

http://trentm.com/projects/which/

which is useful (and cross platforms) to check if some executables are
in the "PATH".

Thanks in advance,