@boost//:stacktrace is missing libbacktrace dependency

[rnburn]

I get this error when building

> bazel build //...
WARNING: Download from https://pkgconfig.freedesktop.org/releases/pkg-config-0.29.2.tar.gz failed: class javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException PKIX path validation failed: java.security.cert.CertPathValidatorException: validity check failed
INFO: Analyzed 793 targets (1 packages loaded, 656 targets configured).
INFO: Found 793 targets...
ERROR: /home/rnburn/.cache/bazel/_bazel_rnburn/d8123aa23bfc2a43914d6af343f507b1/external/boost/BUILD.bazel:1900:14: Compiling libs/stacktrace/src/backtrace.cpp [for tool] failed: (Exit 1): clang-18 failed: error executing command (from target @boost//:stacktrace) /nix/store/42m4mx42crcs69qjbwalxyfkki3vdg0p-clang/bin/clang-18 -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -fstack-protector -Wall -Wthread-safety -Wself-assign -Wunused-but-set-parameter -Wno-free-nonheap-object ... (remaining 291 arguments skipped)
In file included from external/boost/libs/stacktrace/src/backtrace.cpp:15:
In file included from external/boost/libs/stacktrace/include/boost/stacktrace/detail/frame_unwind.ipp:25:
external/boost/libs/stacktrace/include/boost/stacktrace/detail/libbacktrace_impls.hpp:23:13: fatal error: 'backtrace.h' file not found

[rnburn]

For reference, here's a PR with a small patch I put together that adds the libbacktrace dependency: spaceandtimelabs/blitzar#78

But it would probably need to be modified to be usable for a more general context.

[cpsauer]

Hey, Ryan! I'm definitely not the biggest Linux expert here, but I think this comes down to currently assuming that libbacktrace is installed on the system--when it's not always by default, and not on your guys'.

IMO there's room for a better general Bazel thing here for Linux where rules install what they need (see bazelbuild/bazel#17099), maybe selecting on a flag that lets you build and link statically.

[cpsauer]

Anyway, this project is mostly community maintained. (And as much as I wish I could just dive in and fix this one, I don't have bandwidth right now--but I figured I'd hop in and try to help some.)

If you're down to contribute to the ecosystem, I think getting Bazel into libbacktrace (or into the central registry and adding it here) would be quite valuable, as could building the package install stuff linked above!

Thanks,
Chris

[rnburn]

Hey Chris, thanks for getting back to me. I agree that having bazel support for libbacktrace would be valuable -- but that might be a bit too big of a project for me to try to tackle right now.

However, I think you could fairly easly add a custom build file for libbacktrace in the same way you are doing for zlib and bzip2 here: https://github.com/nelhage/rules_boost/blob/master/boost/boost.bzl#L117-L124

That's something I might be able to put together a PR for if you'd be ok with a simple build like this: https://github.com/spaceandtimelabs/blitzar/blob/main/WORKSPACE#L30-L45

I can probably rework it so that it doesn't use https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_foreign_cc if you'd prefer to avoid adding that as a dependency.

[cpsauer]

I think that'd be quite valuable!

Definitely worth avoiding rules_foreign_cc if we easily can, though, since it has a bunch of limitations esp around cross-platform build, as I recall. If you succeed with that, I still think it might be worth seeing if libbacktrace would take the BUILD file!