Compatibility shim to ease adoption of importlib_metadata 3.6. Supplies forward-compatibility of "selectable" entry points even on older versions of importlib_metadata and importlib.metadata, and avoids usage that triggers deprecation warnings.

Use this shim for libraries or applications invoking entry_points() that run on Python older than 3.10 or where importlib_metadata is older than 3.6. In most cases, this shim is unnecessary and the easiest thing to do is simply require importlib_metadata >= 3.6 on all Pythons (or only those prior to 3.10a7). In some environments, a library may be constrained on which versions of importlib_metadata can be required, so this library bridges that gap.

To use this shim, add backports.entry_points_selectable to the affected project's requirements. It will require importlib_metadata automatically where needed (prior to Python 3.8) but be satisfied by older versions. Projects should still require importlib_metadata as appropriate for API uses other than for entry_points.

Then in code, instead of from importlib.metadata import entry_points, use:

from backports.entry_points_selectable import entry_points

And then use the "selectable" features (pass keyword arguments to entry_points or invoke .select() on the result).

This backport has a very lenient dependency on importlib_metadata for older Pythons and is a single module implementation. If adding a dependency is a concern, this module may be vendored into the affected project.