[bug] Conan 1 is broken for Python 3.12

[jwillikers]

Environment details

• Operating System+version: Fedora Linux 39
• Compiler+version: GCC 13.2.1
• Conan version: 1.61.0
• Python version: 3.12.0rc3

Note: The imp module was removed in Python 3.12. See here.

Steps to reproduce

1. python3 -m pip install conan==1.61
2. conan --version

Logs

conan --version
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/jordan/.local/bin/conan", line 5, in <module>
    from conans.conan import run
  File "/home/jordan/.local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/conans/conan.py", line 7, in <module>
    from conans.client.command import main
  File "/home/jordan/.local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/conans/client/command.py", line 14, in <module>
    from conans.client.conan_api import Conan, default_manifest_folder, _make_abs_path, ProfileData
  File "/home/jordan/.local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/conans/client/conan_api.py", line 13, in <module>
    from conans.client.cmd.create import create
  File "/home/jordan/.local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/conans/client/cmd/create.py", line 3, in <module>
    from conans.client.cmd.test import install_build_and_test
  File "/home/jordan/.local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/conans/client/cmd/test.py", line 6, in <module>
    from conans.client.manager import deps_install
  File "/home/jordan/.local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/conans/client/manager.py", line 7, in <module>
    from conans.client.installer import BinaryInstaller, call_system_requirements
  File "/home/jordan/.local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/conans/client/installer.py", line 27, in <module>
    from conans.model.graph_lock import GraphLockFile
  File "/home/jordan/.local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/conans/model/graph_lock.py", line 7, in <module>
    from conans.client.graph.python_requires import PyRequires
  File "/home/jordan/.local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/conans/client/graph/python_requires.py", line 5, in <module>
    from conans.client.loader import parse_conanfile
  File "/home/jordan/.local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/conans/client/loader.py", line 2, in <module>
    import imp
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'imp'

[jwillikers]

This was fixed for Conan V2 in #10127 but the fix was never backported to Conan V1.

[RubenRBS]

Hi! Thanks a lot for your report. We didn't originally backport this for backwards compatibility reasons - Some corner cases of imp's usage differ from importlib's, so we stuck with the old deprecated api around.

Our plan is to release 1.62 with a check for Python 3.12 to fallback to the newer importlib - Note that this might have unintended differences in corer cases when running under 3.12 in Conan 1 compared to previous Python's versions

[jwillikers]

@RubenRBS Thanks! I've patched Conan 1 locally to use importlib and I haven't been experiencing any problems. I'll let you know if I run into anything. Unfortunately, we're pretty much blocked from upgrading to Conan V2 until the Qt Conan package is upgraded to support it.

[RubenRBS]

Thanks! Hopefully the transition to importlib under Python 3.12 goes smoothly then :)

(Thanks for the qt ping, I've asked the team to try to prioritize it if possible to try to unblock you)

[RubenRBS]

Closed in #14841