Dropping Python 2 & 3.5 Support

[briantist]

UPDATE: Python 3.5 support will also be dropped

As clarified in the hvac thread, support for Python 3.5 will also be dropped along with 2.x, and for the same reasons below, this collection won't be able to easily support 3.5.

Python 3.6 will be the minimum version for community.hashi_vault starting in version 2.0.0, keeping parity with hvac.

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Python 2 Support Will be Dropped in v2

As of the next major version, v2 (v2.0.0+) release of community.hashi_vault, Python 2 will no longer be directly supported or tested against. At that time the minimum Python version will likely be Python 3.5, or 3.6 (tbd).

Why?

We all know Py2 is EoL and projects are dropping support for it left and right, including Ansible (on the controller, where currently all content in this collection runs). This makes it harder and harder to keep supporting it, to work around CI and testing issues too. But the major driver for this decision is around the hvac library.

All of the content in this collection currently relies on hvac and is expected to indefinitely.

hvac still supports Python2, for now, however:

• Dropping of Py2 support is planned: Drop Python2 support hvac/hvac#582
• hvac's own CI hasn't been testing against Python 2 since Feb 1: Drop Python2 support hvac/hvac#582 (comment)
• And that's led to two recent releases that accidentally broke Python 2 support, 0.10.12 and 0.10.13 (see hvac import fails hvac/hvac#706 and 0.10.13 release still doesn't work in Python 2 hvac/hvac#711)
• And those issues have in turn renewed discussion of explicitly dropping support in the library rather imminently: hvac import fails hvac/hvac#706 (comment)

Even if hvac does not explicitly drop support, it's clear the lack of testing against it is a problem, and given the other difficulty of continuing to support it, I feel announcing the end of support in this collection's next major version is prudent.

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This post will be updated with more information as it becomes available.

[briantist]

List of things to check/change

just trying to keep a running list of stuff in place so I don't forget. I'm sure more will turn up.

• github workflows
• tests/config.yml -- update the required versions (this will only work in 2.12+ but still)
• tests/integrations/requirements.txt
• tests/unit/requirements.txt
• tests/unit/* check for areas where manual python version exclusion was needed (for 2.6). We'll likely need more of that to exclude 2.7 and 3.5 on ansible-core <=2.11 since tests/config.yml isn't supported on those
• re-evaluate some of the try/import blocks to see if some of the fallbacks are even needed anymore, or could be made better
• update the comments in module & plugin utils code about supported versions of python