From 98ccab49f550b1cb0114cdb7f492b87618fa43cd Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jeremy Stephens <jstep@google.com>
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 16:53:13 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] Prefer _version.py over importlib.metadata at import time

Try importing the build-time generated tabulate._version module first,
and only import importlib.metadata as a fallback when _version.py is
not present (e.g. in an unbuilt git checkout).

Since pyproject.toml configures flit_scm / setuptools_scm with
write_to = "tabulate/_version.py", standard wheels and sdists
already include _version.py. Importing it directly avoids loading
importlib.metadata (and its transitive zipfile, email, pathlib, and
csv imports) and scanning sys.path for .dist-info directories on
every import tabulate.
---
 tabulate/__init__.py | 12 +++++++-----
 test/test_api.py     |  8 +++++++-
 2 files changed, 14 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/tabulate/__init__.py b/tabulate/__init__.py
index 449f78c..90998a2 100644
--- a/tabulate/__init__.py
+++ b/tabulate/__init__.py
@@ -7,7 +7,6 @@
 from decimal import Decimal
 from functools import partial, reduce
 from html import escape as htmlescape
-from importlib.metadata import PackageNotFoundError, version
 import io
 from itertools import chain, zip_longest as izip_longest
 import math
@@ -21,12 +20,15 @@
 except ImportError:
     wcwidth = None
 
+
 try:
-    __version__ = version("tabulate")  # installed package
-except PackageNotFoundError:
+    from ._version import version as __version__  # generated by flit_scm / setuptools_scm
+except ImportError:
+    from importlib.metadata import PackageNotFoundError, version
+
     try:
-        from ._version import version as __version__  # editable / source checkout
-    except ImportError:
+        __version__ = version("tabulate")
+    except PackageNotFoundError:
         __version__ = "unknown"
 
 
diff --git a/test/test_api.py b/test/test_api.py
index cb59836..d6ba280 100644
--- a/test/test_api.py
+++ b/test/test_api.py
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 """API properties."""
 
-from tabulate import simple_separated_format, tabulate, tabulate_formats
+from tabulate import __version__, simple_separated_format, tabulate, tabulate_formats
 
 from common import skip
 
@@ -11,6 +11,12 @@
     _empty = None
 
 
+def test_tabulate_version():
+    "API: __version__ is a non-empty string"
+    assert type(__version__) is str
+    assert len(__version__) > 0
+
+
 def test_tabulate_formats():
     "API: tabulate_formats is a list of strings"
     supported = tabulate_formats