cffi relies on deprecated (now removed) distutils.msvc9compiler module

[alex]

In pypa/distutils#287 this module was removed and in pypa/setuptools#4606 that was incorporated into setuptools 74.

As a result, building cffi now fails with:

    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-bywibcpm\overlay\Lib\site-packages\cffi\_shimmed_dist_utils.py", line 33, in <module>
        from distutils.msvc9compiler import MSVCCompiler
    ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'distutils.msvc9compiler'

    The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "D:\a\cryptography\cryptography\src\_cffi_src\build_openssl.py", line 60, in <module>
        ffi.emit_c_code(c_file)
      File "C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-bywibcpm\overlay\Lib\site-packages\cffi\api.py", line 695, in emit_c_code
        recompile(self, module_name, source,
      File "C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-bywibcpm\overlay\Lib\site-packages\cffi\recompiler.py", line 1546, in recompile
        ext = ffiplatform.get_extension(ext_c_file, module_name, **kwds)
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
      File "C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-bywibcpm\overlay\Lib\site-packages\cffi\ffiplatform.py", line 9, in get_extension
        from cffi._shimmed_dist_utils import Extension
      File "C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-bywibcpm\overlay\Lib\site-packages\cffi\_shimmed_dist_utils.py", line 36, in <module>
        raise Exception("This CFFI feature requires setuptools on Python >= 3.12. Please install the setuptools package.") from ex
    Exception: This CFFI feature requires setuptools on Python >= 3.12. Please install the setuptools package.

[MarkCallow]

Given this issue is breaking my CI builds and the delays getting one or other of the PRs to fix it landed and released, I am looking to workaround the issue temporarily for my project. I did not write our Python interface and I lack Python expertise so I am seeking help here to find a workaround.

My project's requirements.txt has

cffi==1.15.1
setuptools==70.0.0

I would have thought the latter line would get me an older version of setuptools that still has distutils.mscv9compiler but I am getting the ModuleNotFound error.

The setup function in my project's setup.py which does from setuptools import setup has

    cffi_modules=["buildscript.py:ffibuilder"],
    ...
    install_requires=["cffi>=1.15.1"],
    ...
    setup_requires=["cffi>=1.15.1"],

It seems that cffi is unaware of my project's setuptools choice and is using the latest one.

How can I make it use my project's selected setuptools or prevent it using the latest one?

To the maintainers of cffi, please release a fix a.s.a.p.

[Flow86]

Hi, I temporarily fixed my issues by using an environmentvariable PIP_CONSTRAINT=constraint.txt and adding setuptools<74 into the file constraint.txt. that way the constraints also apply to any install/setup requirements

[arigo]

@nitzmahone see comments above.