The imp module is deprecated since Python 3.4. In Python 3.4, imp uses a PendingDeprecationWarning, and Python 3.5... hum, still a PendingDeprecationWarning. It was not supposed to become a real DeprecationWarning?

Anyway, the imp module is still used in some places of the Python stdlib:

Lib/modulefinder.py:14:    import imp
Python/makeopcodetargets.py:9:import imp
Tools/i18n/pygettext.py:159:import imp
Tools/importbench/importbench.py:10:import imp

modulefinder explicitly ignore the warning :-(

with warnings.catch_warnings():
    warnings.simplefilter('ignore', PendingDeprecationWarning)
    import imp

> Python/makeopcodetargets.py:9:import imp

See issue 20021.

New changeset 03cd8340e0ce by Victor Stinner in branch '3.5':
Issue #25160: Fix import_init() comments and messages
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/03cd8340e0ce

> Lib/modulefinder.py:14:    import imp

I forgot to link issue 20020 in my earlier message :)

> Tools/i18n/pygettext.py:159:import imp

I opened the issue #26639 for it.


>> Python/makeopcodetargets.py:9:import imp
> See issue 20021.

I pushed the change f682b620c64d but I forgot about the issue #20021. Let's discuss there about this script.


> Tools/importbench/importbench.py:10:import imp

I think that it's fine to keep imp there.


> Lib/modulefinder.py:14:    import imp

This one requires more work than the other.

Current status:

- 2to3 replaces reload() calls with imp.reload
- Lib/modulefinder.py imports imp and uses it 10 or so times, mostly for constants
- Lib/xml/sax/__init__.py uses imp on Jython only
- Python/makeopcodetargets.py falls back to imp if importlib is not available. 
- Tools/importbench/importbench.py uses imp a number of times.

I'll work on replacing some of these.

One more:

- lib/pkgutil.py in _import_imp (amusingly) uses importlib with silenced warnings to import imp.

> - 2to3 replaces reload() calls with imp.reload

There is an already open issue for this: Issue 21446.

Fixed for Python 3.8 via the patch for #35936.

Oops, this covers more than just modulefinder - reopening until the other remaining uses of the imp module have been removed.

@vstinner 

> Tools/importbench/importbench.py:10:import imp
> I think that it's fine to keep imp there. 

Any reason to keep imp there? We can just port it to sole importlib (it already uses it in some places)

> Any reason to keep imp there?

Nope, not anymore.

Make sure the standard library doesn't emit those warnings itself.

I meant to comment on a different issue, the trigger is stuff like https://bugs.python.org/issue39015 (new deprecationwarnings being generated without cleaning up the standard library first).

imp has been moved to DeprecationWarning and I think its usage in the stdlib has been dealt with at this point.