@bazel_tools//src/main/protobuf reference missing runtime

[cpsauer]

Description of the problem:

Bazel commands like aquery output protobufs in formats described in @bazel_tools//src/main/protobuf. This would make building tooling on top of them amazingly easy...except that the py_proto_libraries specify runtimes and protoc's from //third_party/protobuf, which doesn't seem to be included in @bazel_tools. No fun! So then you can't use the bundled definitions, and end up copy pasting code, or parsing JSON, rather than taking the happy path Bazel (almost) built.

Either using normal protoc and runtime or bundling the runtime and protoc required by the tooling exposed would fix this issue.

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

Try referencing @bazel_tools//src/main/protobuf:analysis_v2_py_proto in a Bazel rule. It'll error out, complaining that the @bazel_tools//third_party/protobuf doesn't exist. Which, checking the filesystem, indeed does not.

Platform details

macOS 11, Bazel 4.0.0 -- the latest at the time of writing.

Related

#8738 discusses problems with the java versions of these rules--the only other way in though @bazel_tools. You used to be able to hack your way around this by having the grpc proto rules reference the raw proto_libraries, but the python protobuf runtime tightened up its checks enough to block the import-path hackery needed to make this work.

[github-actions]

Thank you for contributing to the Bazel repository! This issue has been marked as stale since it has not had any activity in the last 1+ years. It will be closed in the next 14 days unless any other activity occurs or one of the following labels is added: "not stale", "awaiting-bazeler". Please reach out to the triage team (@bazelbuild/triage) if you think this issue is still relevant or you are interested in getting the issue resolved.

[cpsauer]

@bazelbuild/triage, this issue is still relevant AFAIK.

(@bazelbuild/triage didn't seem to create a tag last I tried (no link) so I'm going to also tag @sgowroji and @Pavank1992 manually. Please coach me if you'd have preferred otherwise--and maybe update the bot's instructions)

[sgowroji]

Hi @cpsauer, Thanks for Tagging. We marked it has not stale. So it wont be moving to stale workflow any more.