3.12 support

[gaborbernat]

Description

While trying to add 3.12 support to virtualenv noticed that pip depends on distutils:

 'Remainder of file ignored\n'
 'Traceback (most recent call last):\n'
 '  File "/tmp/pytest-of-runner/pytest-0/test_app_data_pinning0/bin/pip", line '
 '5, in <module>\n'
 '    from pip._internal.main import main\n'
 '  File '
 '"/tmp/pytest-of-runner/pytest-0/test_app_data_pinning0/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/main.py", '
 'line 13, in <module>\n'
 '    from pip._internal.cli.autocompletion import autocomplete\n'
 '  File '
 '"/tmp/pytest-of-runner/pytest-0/test_app_data_pinning0/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/cli/autocompletion.py", '
 'line 11, in <module>\n'
 '    from pip._internal.cli.main_parser import create_main_parser\n'
 '  File '
 '"/tmp/pytest-of-runner/pytest-0/test_app_data_pinning0/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/cli/main_parser.py", '
 'line 7, in <module>\n'
 '    from pip._internal.cli import cmdoptions\n'
 '  File '
 '"/tmp/pytest-of-runner/pytest-0/test_app_data_pinning0/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/cli/cmdoptions.py", '
 'line 19, in <module>\n'
 '    from distutils.util import strtobool\n'

pip version

latest

Python version

3.12

OS

any

How to Reproduce

Run pip on 3.12 no setuptools.

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow the PSF Code of Conduct.

[nedbat]

As of last night's 3.12 build, I get this error:

% .tox/anypy/bin/python -m pip install rich
ERROR: Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/nedbatchelder/coverage/trunk/.tox/anypy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/cli/base_command.py", line 160, in exc_logging_wrapper
    status = run_func(*args)
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/nedbatchelder/coverage/trunk/.tox/anypy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/cli/req_command.py", line 247, in wrapper
    return func(self, options, args)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/nedbatchelder/coverage/trunk/.tox/anypy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/commands/install.py", line 326, in run
    session = self.get_default_session(options)
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/nedbatchelder/coverage/trunk/.tox/anypy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/cli/req_command.py", line 98, in get_default_session
    self._session = self.enter_context(self._build_session(options))
                                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/nedbatchelder/coverage/trunk/.tox/anypy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/cli/req_command.py", line 125, in _build_session
    session = PipSession(
              ^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/nedbatchelder/coverage/trunk/.tox/anypy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/network/session.py", line 343, in __init__
    self.headers["User-Agent"] = user_agent()
                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/nedbatchelder/coverage/trunk/.tox/anypy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/network/session.py", line 175, in user_agent
    setuptools_dist = get_default_environment().get_distribution("setuptools")
                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/nedbatchelder/coverage/trunk/.tox/anypy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/metadata/importlib/_envs.py", line 188, in get_distribution
    return next(matches, None)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/nedbatchelder/coverage/trunk/.tox/anypy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/metadata/importlib/_envs.py", line 183, in <genexpr>
    matches = (
              ^
  File "/Users/nedbatchelder/coverage/trunk/.tox/anypy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/metadata/base.py", line 612, in iter_all_distributions
    for dist in self._iter_distributions():
  File "/Users/nedbatchelder/coverage/trunk/.tox/anypy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/metadata/importlib/_envs.py", line 176, in _iter_distributions
    for dist in finder.find_eggs(location):
  File "/Users/nedbatchelder/coverage/trunk/.tox/anypy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/metadata/importlib/_envs.py", line 144, in find_eggs
    yield from self._find_eggs_in_dir(location)
  File "/Users/nedbatchelder/coverage/trunk/.tox/anypy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/metadata/importlib/_envs.py", line 111, in _find_eggs_in_dir
    from pip._vendor.pkg_resources import find_distributions
  File "/Users/nedbatchelder/coverage/trunk/.tox/anypy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2164, in <module>
    register_finder(pkgutil.ImpImporter, find_on_path)
                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
AttributeError: module 'pkgutil' has no attribute 'ImpImporter'. Did you mean: 'zipimporter'?

[pfmoore]

Is this with the latest release (23.1.2)? That's the release that added support for the new 3.12 build, anything older than that won't work with 3.12.

[pfmoore]

@gaborbernat The same comment is true for the original issue - strtobool is no longer imported from distutils in 3.12.

[nedbat]

Hmm, it looks like although i have pip pinned to 23.1.2, in my tox environment, I have 22.3.1. My bad, I have to untangle this.

[pradyunsg]

There are no distutils imports in pip outside of those gated behind the use of the distutils metadata and location logic, which is not used on 3.12.

Updating the version of pip being used should resolve the failure mode you're seeing. I'm not sure if there's anything actionable on pip's end here.