update setuptools required version?

[jhgit]

Trying to build incremental 24.7.2 with setuptools 63.1.0 and python 3.8 (not EOL when I found this) or python 3.9 (not EOL until 2025-10) gives an error (below).

pyproject.toml has:

requires = [
    # Keep this aligned with the project dependencies.
    "setuptools >= 61.0",
    "tomli; python_version < '3.11'",
]

Maybe that setuptools requirement specification needs to be updated. It seems to build okay with setuptools 63.1.0 when using python 3.10 and 3.11, however. So it isn't necessarily just a simple setuptools version requirement as it seems to depend on python version. But some minimally agreeable version of setuptools can probably be find that accommodates the older python3 versions that are still technically supported versions.

It builds fine with py3.8-3.11 and setuptools 75.1.0. I didn't bifurcate setuptools versions further to find the first good version after 63.1.0 and before 75.1.0. That would be a little easier if I knew what to look for as I don't understand the error at this point.

% python3.9 -m build --no-isolation --wheel
* Getting build dependencies for wheel...
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pyproject_hooks/_in_process/_in_process.py", line 380, in <module>
    main()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pyproject_hooks/_in_process/_in_process.py", line 364, in main
    json_out["return_val"] = hook(**hook_input["kwargs"])
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pyproject_hooks/_in_process/_in_process.py", line 141, in get_requires_for_build_wheel
    return hook(config_settings)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/setuptools/build_meta.py", line 177, in get_requires_for_build_wheel
    return self._get_build_requires(
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/setuptools/build_meta.py", line 159, in _get_build_requires
    self.run_setup()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/setuptools/build_meta.py", line 174, in run_setup
    exec(compile(code, __file__, 'exec'), locals())
  File "setup.py", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/setuptools/__init__.py", line 86, in setup
    _install_setup_requires(attrs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/setuptools/__init__.py", line 75, in _install_setup_requires
    dist = MinimalDistribution(attrs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/setuptools/__init__.py", line 57, in __init__
    super().__init__(filtered)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/setuptools/dist.py", line 474, in __init__
    for ep in metadata.entry_points(group='distutils.setup_keywords'):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/setuptools/_vendor/importlib_metadata/__init__.py", line 999, in entry_points
    return SelectableGroups.load(eps).select(**params)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/setuptools/_vendor/importlib_metadata/__init__.py", line 449, in load
    ordered = sorted(eps, key=by_group)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/setuptools/_vendor/importlib_metadata/__init__.py", line 996, in <genexpr>
    eps = itertools.chain.from_iterable(
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/setuptools/_vendor/importlib_metadata/_itertools.py", line 16, in unique_everseen
    k = key(element)
AttributeError: 'PathDistribution' object has no attribute '_normalized_name'

ERROR Backend subprocess exited when trying to invoke get_requires_for_build_wheel