Remove libpython linkage instead of ignoring it.

[vyasr]

Resolves #589.

I also switched the pre-commit config to use any Python 3 instead of constraining to 3.9. Without that, running pre-commit fails as shown in pre-commit/pre-commit#1375.

[vyasr]

I tested this approach using https://github.com/rapidsai/ucxx/, which has wheels that are currently (incorrectly) linking to libpython and it worked fine in patching those dependencies out. I will be updating that build to remove the dependency altogether on the build side so that we won't need this functionality from auditwheel anymore, but it would still be the safe choice in general IMHO.

[codecov]

Codecov Report

All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests ✅

Project coverage is 92.82%. Comparing base (f9bbbce) to head (05c1e54).
Report is 1 commits behind head on main.

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main     #590      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   92.78%   92.82%   +0.04%     
==========================================
  Files          21       21              
  Lines        1760     1771      +11     
  Branches      332      333       +1     
==========================================
+ Hits         1633     1644      +11     
  Misses         77       77              
  Partials       50       50              

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[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR changes how libpython dependencies are handled by removing them during repair rather than silently ignoring them, and updates tests to cover the new behavior. It also relaxes the pre-commit Python version constraint to any Python 3.

• Drop LIBPYTHON_RE filtering in policy.filter_libs
• Introduce remove_needed calls in repair_wheel and implement it in patcher
• Add LIBPYTHON_RE support and skipping logic in lddtree
• Update and add unit/integration tests to cover removal behavior
• Add a session fixture in conftest.py to clean environment variables

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 11 out of 11 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
src/auditwheel/policy/init.py	Remove LIBPYTHON_RE exclusion from filter_libs
src/auditwheel/lddtree.py	Add LIBPYTHON_RE, skip libpython resolution in ldd, update __all__
src/auditwheel/repair.py	Import LIBPYTHON_RE and call patcher.remove_needed for libpython
src/auditwheel/patcher.py	Add remove_needed to base ElfPatcher and implement in Patchelf
tests/unit/test_policy.py	Remove libpython entries from expected filtered libs
tests/unit/test_lddtree.py	Add match/nomatch tests for LIBPYTHON_RE and a full ldd libpython test
tests/unit/test_elfpatcher.py	Add test_remove_needed for Patchelf
tests/integration/test_bundled_wheels.py	Extend integration tests for libpython removal and adjust imports
conftest.py	Add clean_env fixture to unset auditwheel-related env vars before tests

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (2)

tests/integration/test_bundled_wheels.py:11

• The test uses mock.patch but mock is no longer imported. Add from unittest import mock or import patch directly to avoid a NameError.

from unittest.mock import Mock

tests/integration/test_bundled_wheels.py:194

• Namespace is used but not imported; add from argparse import Namespace (or adjust to use a different class) at the top of the file.

args = Namespace(

[lkollar]

LGTM. I was wondering if we should introduce some sort of temporary override to disable this behaviour in case it causes issues, but it's always possible to pin to an older version, so I guess that's good enough.

[lkollar]

I agree, this is the right approach.

[mayeut]

thanks for the review @lkollar

I was wondering if we should introduce some sort of temporary override to disable this behaviour in case it causes issues, but it's always possible to pin to an older version, so I guess that's good enough.

pinning is one way, adding --exclude libpython3*.so.* is another (although it's still a bit different when calling ldd, it wouldn't remove the DT_NEEDED entry)

I'll merge & tag a new version as I'll have some time end of next week if there are some bugs reported with a new version.

[vyasr]

Thanks for getting this cleaned up and merged so quickly! I appreciate the quick review.