Replace deprecated imp module with importlib

[hugovk]

This project uses the imp module which has been deprecated since Python 3.4 and removed in 3.12:

• Raised PendingDeprecationWarning since 3.4 (2014)
• Raised DeprecationWarning since 3.5 (2015)
• Updated DeprecationWarning to say removal in 3.12 since 3.10 (2021)
• Removal planned for 3.12 (2023)

Python 3.12 is set for release on 2023-10-02 and this library is one of the top 5,000 most-downloaded from PyPI.

Please could you upgrade to use importlib? The imp docs have suggestions on what to use to replace each function and constant.

[facelessuser]

In general, this library should not be used as all Python versions where this is useful are now "end of life". Python 3.7+ do not need this, and even 3.7 is close to EOL.

Most libraries should only conditionally include this as a dependency if they choose to support really old Python < 3.7.

With that said it is fairly trivial to update the setup script to use importlib as I've done so in some other projects. I believe this will work.

def get_version():
    """Get version_info without importing the entire module."""

    import importlib.util

    path = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "pep562", "__meta__.py")
    spec = importlib.util.spec_from_file_location("__meta__", path)
    module = importlib.util.module_from_spec(spec)
    spec.loader.exec_module(module)
    return module.__version_info__._get_dev_status()

PRs are also welcome. If we do this, this is likely to be the last release of this project as all Python versions that depend upon this are now EOL.

[hugovk]

Thanks for the reply. I think it's acceptable to say 3.12 isn't supported.

In fact, I now see the README says this:

Once Python 3.6 is end of life, this module will be irrelevant and will no longer receive active support.

And 3.6 has been EOL since 2021-12-23.

Feel free to close this, and thank you for your time :)