Python 3.12

[naveen521kk]

This is going to be the tracker of things that are to be done.

Initial work done at: #165 - this builds successfully, though doesn't pass tests as setuptools doesn't directly support Mingw-w64 compilers.

Things to be done/discussed before deploying:

• About the distutils situation, we won't be able to ship this directly since it can't build any C extension. There's a way by patching setuptools, which is done in the msys2 provided package, but venv and pip-based installation would be broken. Maybe we could set up a custom pypi-index, something like https://github.com/naveen521kk/pypi-index, so that things work by default, though we would need to setup an env var and would only work in MSYS2 shell. Another solution would be to ask upstream to merge the support for Mingw-python PR, Add support for building extensions using MinGW compilers pypa/distutils#184.
• Should we change the SOABI/EXT_SUFFIX to something better? See https://discord.com/channels/792780131906617355/794220101741838401/1207788525047644242 for the original discussion on Discord. cc @MehdiChinoune (see sysconfig.get_platform(): use consistent naming #178)
• Cross-build fixes, it looks like there is some issue there. (see Fix cross builds #179)
• Implement https://peps.python.org/pep-0668/ (see python3.12: add EXTERNALLY-MANAGED for PEP 668 msys2/MINGW-packages#22368) - Convert it into a warning rather than an error
• Try fixing Fix SOABI #120 and Wrong SOABI value #119

[MehdiChinoune]

My proposition about SOABI/EXT_SUFFIX to use a consitent naming so anyone could differentiate them according to their ABI, something like mingw_<cpu_arch>_<c_runtime>_<toolchain>
where:
cpu_arch = x86_64, aarch64 or i686 (or any new possible architecture)
c_runtime = msvcrt or ucrt
toolchain = gnu or llvm, the toolchain here means Compilers (gcc vs clang) + linkers (binutils vs LLVM tools) + c++ library (libstdc++ vs libc++) + OpenMP library (gomp vs llvm-openmp)

[MehdiChinoune]

Another proposition is to implement PEP668, like we discussed in discord.

[naveen521kk]

Oh right, pep668, I'll add that to the list of things to do.

[lazka]

From what I understand the SOABI change and PEP668 are not blockers for the update and could in theory be handled afterwards, no?

[naveen521kk]

From what I understand the SOABI change and PEP668 are not blockers for the update and could in theory be handled afterwards, no?

I think changing the SOABI after the update would be possible, though it should be before making python 3.12 the default one. For, PEP668 yeah it could be handled afterwards.