bazel query --output=location does not print source file paths

[wchargin]

Description of the problem / feature request:

The docs for --output=location say:

For source files, the location of line 1 of the actual file is printed.

This is what I want, but it is not what happens: instead, what is
printed is the location of a reference to the source file from a BUILD
file. There appears to be no way to actually turn a label for a source
file into that source file’s path on disk.

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

N/A

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

$ cd "$(mktemp -d)"
$ >WORKSPACE
$ >BUILD <<EOF cat
> py_binary(
>   name = "main",
>   srcs = ["main.py"],
> )
> EOF
$ >main.py
$ bazel query //:main.py --output=location 2>/dev/null
/tmp/tmp.97B2nY3jsI/BUILD:3:10: source file //:main.py

Not even --output=proto includes the promised information:

$ bazel query //:main.py --output=proto | strings
//:main.py
/tmp/tmp.97B2nY3jsI/BUILD:3:10*

What operating system are you running Bazel on?

gLinux (like Debian)

What's the output of bazel info release?

release 0.28.0

If bazel info release returns "development version" or "(@non-git)", tell us how you built Bazel.

N/A

What's the output of git remote get-url origin ; git rev-parse master ; git rev-parse HEAD ?

N/A

Have you found anything relevant by searching the web?

Nope.

Any other information, logs, or outputs that you want to share?

Nope.

[jin]

@janakdr could you assign a priority level for triaged issues, please?

[zhengwei143]

This issue will be resolved with #12322.

[zhengwei143]

We are re-thinking the changes that fixed this issue and are considering changing the documentation to match this behaviour instead.

But first we would like to check whether this would be a big issue with you (that it will continue to print the location of the source file within the BUILD file instead)?

[wchargin]

It would certainly be inconvenient. This issue has 6 upvotes (not
including me), which puts it in the top 3.5% of open issues sorted by
vote count.

Finding the source file on disk is often useful, but I’ve never wanted
this to produce a location in a BUILD file (the bad behavior).
If I wanted that, I’d look at same_pkg_direct_rdeps or something.

[zhengwei143]

Thanks for the input, we have also decided internally to carry on with this change.