Is there a hack/workaround to get Flet Build to play nice with older package dependencies?

[amcraig]

Question

Hi all, is there a hack/workaround to get Flet Build to play nice with older package dependencies?
When I try to build a Flet application for MacOS which uses my private python package as a dependency it fails the build in the "Packaging Python App" step with the error:

  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1387, in _gcd_import
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1360, in _find_and_load
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1310, in _find_and_load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 488, in _call_with_frames_removed
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1387, in _gcd_import
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1360, in _find_and_load
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1331, in _find_and_load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 935, in _load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 995, in exec_module
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 488, in _call_with_frames_removed
  File "/private/var/folders/3t/pwj1q2b179334dxv_27t50_80000gp/T/pip-build-env-63o15jg6/overlay/lib/python3.12/site-packages/setuptools/__init__.py", line 10, in <module>
    import distutils.core
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'distutils'

I am positive that this is due to some archaic requirements that my private package has as a dependency.

However, does anyone know a workaround for flet build to play nice with packages that still use distutils besides updating them all?

Code sample

No response

Error message

No response

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• I have searched for answers to my question both in the issues and in previous discussions.

[FeodorFitsner]

You can add setuptools to your dependencies: https://stackoverflow.com/a/76691103/1435891

[amcraig]

I tried that, but unfortunately it still comes up with the same error:
Here's a snippet of the pyproject.toml changes

[tool.poetry.dependencies]
python = "^3.10"
flet = "^0.25.2"
setuptools = "^75.6.0"
private = { git = "https://github.com/private/package.git" }

I removed all the versioning in the private package, and I got it to build, but I'd need to have to go through and ensure nothing in our monolithic package is broken by several years of changes.

[FeodorFitsner]

Alright, the solution is 🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁 installing both pip (add pip = "^24.3.1" to your project.toml) and setuptools.

In the program first import setuptools - it "enables" distutils and then importing distutils will work:

import setuptools
import distutils.core # won't fail

[amcraig]

I really wish it worked, but unfortunately importing pip/setuptools/distutils still didn't work.

When I version bumped all our internal dependencies the build worked, so I think that's my next step. I'll just have to go convince my team to invest time to upgrade and unit test.

I really appreciated the help @FeodorFitsner !
I think this thread is good to close.

[FeodorFitsner]

Yeah, I was testing on a clean/empty project.