remove the DT_NEEDED entry rather than replacing with an empty one

Author: mayeut

src/auditwheel/patcher.py

@@ -11,6 +11,9 @@ class ElfPatcher:
     def replace_needed(self, file_name: Path, *old_new_pairs: tuple[str, str]) -> None:
         raise NotImplementedError()
 
+    def remove_needed(self, file_name: Path, *sonames: str) -> None:
+        raise NotImplementedError()
+
     def set_soname(self, file_name: Path, new_so_name: str) -> None:
         raise NotImplementedError()
 
@@ -57,6 +60,15 @@ def replace_needed(self, file_name: Path, *old_new_pairs: tuple[str, str]) -> No
             ]
         )
 
+    def remove_needed(self, file_name: Path, *sonames: str) -> None:
+        check_call(
+            [
+                "patchelf",
+                *chain.from_iterable(("--remove-needed", soname) for soname in sonames),
+                file_name,
+            ]
+        )
+
     def set_soname(self, file_name: Path, new_so_name: str) -> None:
         check_call(["patchelf", "--set-soname", new_so_name, file_name])
 

src/auditwheel/repair.py

@@ -74,8 +74,12 @@ def repair_wheel(
             for soname, src_path in ext_libs.items():
                 # Handle libpython dependencies by removing them
                 if LIBPYTHON_RE.match(soname):
-                    logger.info("Removing libpython dependency %s from %s", soname, fn)
-                    patcher.replace_needed(fn, (soname, ""))
+                    logger.warning(
+                        "Removing libpython dependency %s from %s, libpython shall not be linked for CPython extensions on Linux",
+                        soname,
+                        fn,
+                    )
+                    patcher.remove_needed(fn, soname)
                     continue
 
                 if src_path is None: