Add warning for use of Python < 3.8 since previous versions have reached

end of life.

Author: anthony-tuininga

doc/src/release_notes.rst

@@ -73,6 +73,13 @@ Thick Mode Changes
 Common Changes
 ++++++++++++++
 
+#)  Use of Python 3.6 and 3.7 is deprecated and support for them will be
+    removed in a future release. A warning is issued when these versions are
+    used but otherwise they will continue to function as usual. The warning can
+    be suppressed by importing `warnings
+    <https://docs.python.org/3/library/warnings.html>`__ and adding a call like
+    ``warnings.filterwarnings(action='ignore', module="oracledb")``
+    *before* importing ``oracledb``.
 #)  Added support for the :attr:`~Variable.outconverter` being called when a
     null value is fetched from the database and the new parameter
     ``convert_nulls`` to the method :meth:`Cursor.var()` is passed the value

src/oracledb/__init__.py

@@ -29,6 +29,14 @@
 #------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 import sys
+import warnings
+
+if sys.version_info[:2] < (3, 8):
+    message = f"Python {sys.version_info[0]}.{sys.version_info[1]} " \
+        "is no longer supported by the Python core team. " \
+        "Therefore, support for it is deprecated in python-oracledb and " \
+        "will be removed in a future release"
+    warnings.warn(message)
 
 from .version import (
     __version__ as __version__