Query @sub//... of local_repository fails because of including @sub//bazel-subdir/

[moroten]

Description of the problem / feature request:

Consider two repositories, toprepo which uses subrepo. subrepo is buildable of its own, which means that subrepo-checkout-dir/bazel-subrepo-checkout-dir will exist. When working in toprepo, bazel query @subrepo//... will fail when traversing @subrepo//bazel-subrepo-checkout-dir.

Feature requests: what underlying problem are you trying to solve with this feature?

By solving #7093 and #9080, it would be possible to add bazel-* to subrepo/.bazelignore and therefore avoid the problem. I will ignore bazel-* in all my future repositories, so consider adding bazel-* as a default built-in ignore.

Alternatively, teach local_repository to suppress bazel-* folders or limit the suppression to bazel-{bin,out,testlogs} and bazel-<dirname>.

Bugs: what's the simplest, easiest way to reproduce this bug? Please provide a minimal example if possible.

mkdir subdir
touch subdir/WORKSPACE
cat > WORKSPACE <<EOF
local_repository(
    name = "subrepo",
    path = "subdir",
)
EOF

(cd subdir && bazel build @bazel_tools//tools/build_defs/hash:sha256)
bazel build @subrepo//...

results in

ERROR: error loading package '@subrepo//bazel-subdir/external/bazel_tools/tools/python/runfiles': Every .bzl file must have a corresponding package, but '@subrepo//tools/python:private/defs.bzl' does not have one. Please create a BUILD file in the same or any parent directory. Note that this BUILD file does not need to do anything except exist.
INFO: Elapsed time: 0.712s
INFO: 0 processes.
FAILED: Build did NOT complete successfully (9 packages loaded)
    currently loading: @subrepo//bazel-subdir/external/bazel_tools/tools/python

What operating system are you running Bazel on?

Linux (Ubuntu)

What's the output of bazel info release?

release 1.1.0

[SilverTux]

Hi,

We have faced an issues similar to this and we figured it out that the problem is the bazel build ...:all command. What ... will do is recursively find bazel stuff in the current and child directories. Your first command bazel build @bazel_tools//tools/build_defs/hash:sha256 will create symlinks inside the subdir which will point to /home/user/.cache/... dir. I don't remember where but I've read somewhere that you shouldn't run bazel command inside that directory.
The solution is to use absolute references instead ... e.g.: bazel build @subrepo//:all.

Best regards,
SilverTux

[sgowroji]

Hi there! We're doing a clean up of old issues and will be closing this one. Please reopen if you’d like to discuss anything further. We’ll respond as soon as we have the bandwidth/resources to do so.