bazelbuild/bazel

Documentation issue: General Rules: When to use genrule vs. rule ?

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#12.781 aperta il 6 gen 2021

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Documentation URL: https://docs.bazel.build/versions/master/be/general.html#genrule

This documentation lacks guidance on whether, or in what situations, a rule() should be favored over a genrule() (or vice-versa).

IMHO, rules are preferable because:

  • They can return providers, thus allowing references to their targets to be typechecked.
  • The Make variable syntax of genrules is obscure and harder to look up.
  • They're more explicit in general and support various doc fields for documentation.
  • I seem to recall some quirks around inferring the relevant genrule from an output filename, but perhaps that's been fixed by now.

I guess maybe genrule's terseness could be justified if the target and its generator are one-offs?

But that's just my opinion. I'd prefer official guidance from Bazel Team, hence this issue.

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