util: improved the check for the existence of the 'buffer' builtin 2to3 is unable to translate '__builtin__' calls to 'builtins' when hasattr is used (as in hasattr(__builtin__, buffer)). Translating the check to the format try: whatever except NameError # define whatever __builtin__.whatever = whatever is a correct way of checking for the name and has the benefit of being translated by 2to3. This patch implements the same idea for the aforementioned example.