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Describe how the separate class hierarchies in importlib.metadata and the importlib_metadata backport affect custom providers: which objects the backport substitutes, which it passes through with a warning, and why a provider should implement the whole interface and rely on the shared protocols rather than on a particular base class. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
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importlib_metadata now decides the warning by conformance to IDistribution rather than by class identity, so a provider that presents the whole interface draws no warning and the warning names what a class omits. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
jaraco
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Oct 22, 2026
jaraco
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Oct 22, 2026
The guidance to rely on the interface rather than the type addresses every consumer, not only a provider that consumes metadata, so promote the caveats to their own section and split it by audience. Note that the protocols come from the backport, which this module does not yet present. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
Assume the shared protocols from python/importlib_metadata#505 are presented by this module as well: document IDistribution and IPackagePath, correct PackageMetadata, which is already a protocol here rather than an implementation of the backport's, and write the caveats around the protocols as the interface both libraries satisfy. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
jaraco
changed the title
Adds the IDistribution and IPackagePath protocols, so a consumer can target one interface across this module and the backport rather than either library's concrete classes, and annotates the functions returning distributions and files with them. The backport's compat and _compat packages are excluded from the port as usual, so localize and the conformance warning it raises do not appear here; only the protocols they are defined against do. This is what the caveats documented for pythongh-123976 in this branch describe. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
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jaraco
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Nov 6, 2026
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Nov 6, 2026
Documents the two class hierarchies, the protocols both satisfy, and what that asks of consumers and of custom providers, following the protocols and conformance-based warning added in #505. Moved here from a draft against the stdlib docs (python/cpython#160344), where the concern is largely this package's rather than the stdlib's. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
The caveats are largely this backport's concern, so they now live in its own documentation (python/importlib_metadata@be2ea93bc), which this module links to from the overview, from IDistribution, and from the custom provider example. What stays here is the documentation of the protocols themselves. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
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Applies importlib_metadata 10.0 and documents the protocols it adds.
Sync
Lib/importlib/metadata/picks up importlib_metadata 10.0(python/importlib_metadata#505, for python/importlib_metadata#486):
IDistributionandIPackagePathprotocols in_meta.py, both@runtime_checkable, exported fromimportlib.metadata. Thecompatand_compatpackages, which holdlocalizeand the warning it raises for aprovider's incomplete
Distributionsubclass, are excluded from the port asusual, so only the protocols arrive here.
Documentation (gh-123976)
IDistributionandIPackagePath.PackageMetadataentry, which described itself as "a concreteimplementation of the PackageMetadata protocol" and linked to the backport's
docs for the protocol.
importlib.metadata._meta.PackageMetadatais itself aProtocol, and is exported in__all__.Caveats
page from the overview's
seealso, fromIDistribution, and from the customprovider example.
The caveats themselves — the two class hierarchies, what the backport
substitutes and what it passes through unchanged, and what that asks of
consumers and of custom providers — now live in the backport's documentation
(python/importlib_metadata@be2ea93bc), the concern being largely the backport's
rather than the stdlib's.
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