setuptools version

setuptools==76.0.0

Python version

Python 3.9

OS

Fedora 41

Additional environment information

No response

Description

As of this morning, my tests have begun failing with:

   /home/runner/work/pybids/pybids/.tox/py39-min/lib/python3.9/site-packages/numpy/distutils/__init__.py:24: in <module>
      from . import ccompiler
  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 
  
      import os
      import re
      import sys
      import shlex
      import time
      import subprocess
      from copy import copy
      from distutils import ccompiler
  >   from distutils.ccompiler import (
          compiler_class, gen_lib_options, get_default_compiler, new_compiler,
          CCompiler
      )
  E   ImportError: cannot import name 'compiler_class' from 'distutils.ccompiler' (/home/runner/work/pybids/pybids/.tox/py39-min/lib/python3.9/site-packages/setuptools/_distutils/ccompiler.py)

Note that this import is removed from the latest numpy; this only occurs because I test my declared minimum versions using a lowest-direct resolution. This means that if I say I support numpy >=1.22, then I get numpy 1.22, but if setuptools is an indirect dependency, it is allowed to be the latest. (It's infeasible to use a recursive lowest for long-standing packages, since that will currently find dependencies with no minimum stated version or with sdists that predate requires-python and attempt to install python 2 packages.)

If necessary, I can pin an older version of setuptools in my tox.ini, but if it's possible to re-add this import, it would save doing this across many repositories.

I initially posted this as pypa/distutils#336, not realizing I wasn't posting on setuptools. Feel free to close if that issue is enough.

Expected behavior

I would prefer not to break backwards compatibility with distutils until Python 3.11 is EOL. Many projects did not fully fix this until 3.12.

How to Reproduce

uv venv -p 3.9 /tmp/py39
source /tmp/py39/bin/activate
pip install setuptools numpy==1.22
python -c 'import numpy.testing'

Output

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/tmp/py39/lib/python3.9/site-packages/numpy/testing/__init__.py", line 12, in <module>
    from ._private import extbuild, decorators as dec
  File "/tmp/py39/lib/python3.9/site-packages/numpy/testing/_private/extbuild.py", line 11, in <module>
    from numpy.distutils.ccompiler import new_compiler
  File "/tmp/py39/lib/python3.9/site-packages/numpy/distutils/__init__.py", line 24, in <module>
    from . import ccompiler
  File "/tmp/py39/lib/python3.9/site-packages/numpy/distutils/ccompiler.py", line 9, in <module>
    from distutils.ccompiler import (
ImportError: cannot import name 'compiler_class' from 'distutils.ccompiler' (/tmp/py39/lib/python3.9/site-packages/setuptools/_distutils/ccompiler.py)