Bazel action output path - bazel

How do I get the absolute path that the sandbox worker will be executing in from skylark?
I've got a number of rules where I need to add an argument to the action command in skylark. The argument is always the equivalent of "-fdebug-prefix-map=$(/bin/readlink -f .)=.". I need the path so I can teach my tools to strip off the sandbox path and leave a relative path. What's the best way to get access to that path?

As a workaround you can use the blaze-bin symlink.
However, in general, you cannot (particularly if you use --define).
You should wrap your script in a blaze rule and use blaze run.

Related

How can a Bazel `repository_rule` adjust a `label_flag` (or a `config_setting` more generally)?

I can create a label_flag in Bazel to allow command line flags to in turn be matched with a config_setting in a Bazel BUILD file.
However, I'd like to not hard-code the default value of the label_flag, and instead compute a good default based on the system when evaluating a repository_rule (or some other part of the WORKSPACE file).
The best (but awful) way I've come up with to do this is to have the default value loaded from a .bzl file that is generated using the template function on the repository_ctx.
I feel like generating a new file by doing textual substitutions probably isn't the right way to do this, but I can't find anything else. Ideas? help?
Generating a bzl file using the repository rule that inspects the host system is the only way to achieve what you need right now. So you're holding it "right" :)

Are absolute paths safe to use in Bazel?

I am experimenting with Bazel to be added along with an old, make/shell based build system. I can easily make shell commands which returns an absolute path to some tool or library build by the old build system as early prerequisites. These commands I can use in a genrule(), which copies the needed files (like headers and libs) into Bazel proper to be exposed in form of a cc_library().
I found out that genrule() does not detect a dependency if the command uses a file with absolute path - it is not caught by the sandbox. In a way I am (ab)using that behavior.
It is it safe? Will some future update of Bazel refuse access to files based on absolute path in that way in a command in genrule?
Most of Bazel's sandboxes allow access to most paths outside of the source tree by default. Details depend on which sandbox implementation you're using. The docker sandbox, for example, allows access to all those paths inside of a docker image. It's kind of hard to make promises about future Bazel versions, but I think it's unlikely that a sandbox will prevent accessing /bin/bash (for example), which means other absolute paths will probably continue to work too.
--sandbox_block_path can be used to explicitly block a path if you want.
If you always have the files available on every machine you build on, your setup should work. Keep in mind that Bazel will not recognize when the contents of those files change, so you can easily get stale results in various caches. You can avoid that by ensuring the external paths change whenever their contents do.
new_local_repository might be a better fit to avoid those problems, if you know the paths ahead of time.
If you don't know the paths ahead of time, you can write a custom repository rule which runs arbitrary commands via repository_ctx.execute to retrieve the paths and them symlinks them in with repository_ctx.symlink.
Tensorflow's third_party/sycl/sycl_configure.bzl has an example of doing something similar (you would do something other than looking at environment variables like find_computecpp_root does, and you might symlink entire directories instead of all the files in them):
def _symlink_dir(repository_ctx, src_dir, dest_dir):
"""Symlinks all the files in a directory.
Args:
repository_ctx: The repository context.
src_dir: The source directory.
dest_dir: The destination directory to create the symlinks in.
"""
files = repository_ctx.path(src_dir).readdir()
for src_file in files:
repository_ctx.symlink(src_file, dest_dir + "/" + src_file.basename)
def find_computecpp_root(repository_ctx):
"""Find ComputeCpp compiler."""
sycl_name = ""
if _COMPUTECPP_TOOLKIT_PATH in repository_ctx.os.environ:
sycl_name = repository_ctx.os.environ[_COMPUTECPP_TOOLKIT_PATH].strip()
if sycl_name.startswith("/"):
return sycl_name
fail("Cannot find SYCL compiler, please correct your path")
def _sycl_autoconf_imp(repository_ctx):
<snip>
computecpp_root = find_computecpp_root(repository_ctx)
<snip>
_symlink_dir(repository_ctx, computecpp_root + "/lib", "sycl/lib")
_symlink_dir(repository_ctx, computecpp_root + "/include", "sycl/include")
_symlink_dir(repository_ctx, computecpp_root + "/bin", "sycl/bin")

Programatically and reliably retrieve the path to the go executable in container without 'which' with Go

How can I retrieve the path to the go binary in a container that does not have which programatically?
One option would be to execute which go as follows:
bytes, err := exec.Command("which", "go").Output()
However, I would like to not depend on which being available. Does go provide any in-built mechanism to retrieve this and if not, what is the alternative apart from having the user pass in the path themselves?
From the man page of which:
Which takes one or more arguments. For each of its arguments it prints to stdout the full path of the executables that would have been executed when this argument had been entered at the shell prompt. It does this by searching for an executable or script in the directories listed in the environment variable PATH using the same algorithm as bash(1).
Go's os/exec.LookPath function is very close to this functionality:
LookPath searches for an executable named file in the directories named by the PATH environment variable. If file contains a slash, it is tried directly and the PATH is not consulted. The result may be an absolute path or a path relative to the current directory.
Use path/filepath.Abs if you need a guaranteed absolute path.
I don't expect this to be the best answer, but it is one that I just found. I was hoping for more of a go-specific one, but in the meantime type in linux is a default built-in one available in bash and sh (alpine).
You can test this yourself by running type type which yields:
type is a shell builtin
The usage in go would look like this:
b, err := exec.Command("type", "go").Output()
if err != nil {
/* 'type' is not available on the O/S */
}
goPath := strings.TrimPrefix(strings.TrimSuffix(string(b), "\n"), "go is ")
The reason the Trim functions are required is because the output would look like this:
go is /usr/local/go/bin/go\n
This isn't the nicest way of going about it, but it works.

Is it possible to get $pwd value from Bazel .bzl rule?

I am trying to get a value of the full current directory path from within .bzl rule. I have tried following:
ctx.host_configuration.default_shell_env.PATH returns "/Users/[user_name]/.rbenv/shims:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:...
ctx.bin_dir.path returns bazel-out/local-fastbuild/bin
pwd = ctx.expand_make_variables("cmd", "$$PWD", {}) returns string $PWD - I don't think this rule is helpful for me, but may be just using it wrong.
What I need is the directory under which the cmd that runs Bazel .bzl rule is running. For example: /Users/[user_name]/git/workspace/path/to/bazel/rule.bzl or at least first part of the path prior to the WORKSPACE directory.
I can't use pwd because I need this value before I call ctx.actions.run_shell()
Are there no attributes in Bazel configurations that hold this value?
The goal is to have hermetic builds, so you shouldn't depend on the absolute path.
Feel free to use pwd inside the command of ctx.actions.run_shell() (for reproducible builds, be careful, avoid putting the absolute path in the generated files).
Edit.
Technically, there are some workarounds. For example, you can pass the path via the --define flag:
bazel build :all --define=path=$(pwd)
Then the value will be available using ctx.var["path"].
Based on your comment below, you want the path to declare an output. Let me repeat: You shouldn't use an absolute path to declare the output file. Declare an output in your package. Then ask the tool you call to use that output.
For example, when you call gcc, you can use -o to specify the output. When a tool writes to stdout, use the shell to redirect it. If the tool is really not flexible, you may want to wrap it with your own script (e.g. call the tool and copy the output file).
Using an absolute path here is not the right solution. For example, it should be possible to execute the action on a remote machine (where your absolute path won't make sense.
Zip may be a reasonable solution. It's useful when you cannot know in advance the number or the names of the output files.

directory path question

What is the difference between:
include("./somepath/class.php");
and
include("somepath/class.php");
There shouldn't be any difference, directory wise, since the former assumes relative directory structure. The only potential pitfall could be if "somepath" were actually a command to be run - some users expect to type a command for a local script file and assume it should run, when you actually have to run "./somepath" to invoke it. This, of course, only pertains to commands not on your $PATH.
I don't see any difference. "." means current directory.
. refers to the current working directory.
Sometimes you want to specify explicitly that what you want is in the current working directory, and that it is not from something in your path variable for example.
For example in PHP "somepath/somefile" is appended after paths specified in include_dir (for example: /home/var/; /home/bin/ ....) directive.
The second variant is more specific it says: search in current directory!

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