bazelbuild/bazel

Documentation genrule example - maybe avoid $(location ..) or $(locations ..)

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#15,078 opened on Mar 18, 2022

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P3help wantedteam-Documentationteam-Rules-Servertype: documentation (cleanup)

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Description

Description of the problem / feature request:

https://docs.bazel.build/versions/main/be/general.html#genrule_examples

Elsewhere I've seen that we're not supposed to be using $(location) calls and should instead be using $(rootpath ..) or $(execpath ..)

https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/issues/2475#issuecomment-339318016

I just spent hours debugging why a genrule of mine didn't work, when it wasn't exactly clear from the example that

  1. We shouldn't be using $(location ..)
  2. That $(location ..) can return different things in Skylark depending on srcs vs other generated outs.

Maybe this is clear for people who've been in Bazel for years and are aware of the changes to all make-style vars.

Contributor guide

Research direction
Identify all instances of $(location) in the genrule documentation and replace with $(rootpath) or $(execpath) as appropriate based on the context.
Tech stack
None
Domain
documentation
Issue type
Documentation
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
1
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
Under 1 hour
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Fresh
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Clear
Prerequisites
basic Bazel understanding
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
85