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The problem being discussed here just came up on Stack Overflow today: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/37288135/inspect-module-for-python/
The cause of the incorrect error message is pretty clear. The relevant code from `inspect.getfile` should do something better when the object has a `__module__` attribute, but the module named (when looked up in `sys.modules`) does not have a `__file__` attribute. Currently it says the module is a builtin class, which is total nonsense.
A very basic fix would be to have an extra error case:
 if isclass(object):
 if hasattr(object, '__module__'):
 object = sys.modules.get(object.__module__)
 if hasattr(object, '__file__'):
 return object.__file__
 raise TypeError() # need a relevant message here!!!
 raise TypeError('{!r} is a built-in class'.format(object))
It might be easier to make a meaningful message if the code after the first `if` didn't overwrite `object` with the module.
But, really, it would be nice to figure out a better fix, which would make the relevant inspect functions actually work for classes defined interactively in the `__main__` module.