Release 7.2.0rc3 (2024-06-05)

Bazel 7.2.0 is a minor LTS release. It is fully backward compatible with Bazel 7.0 and contains selected changes by the Bazel community and Google engineers.

C++ / Objective-C

• The default Unix C++ toolchain now supports the parse_headers feature to validate header files with --process_headers_in_dependencies. (#22369)

CLI

• Bazel on Linux and BSD now respects the XDG_CACHE_HOME environment variable instead of assuming that ~/.cache/bazel is writable. (#21817)

Configurability

• aquery: //foo:bar now means "all configured targets with label //foo:bar" instead of "choose an arbitrary configured target with label //foo:bar". This is in line with cquery behavior. (#22135)
• Starlark command-line flags can now be referred to through alias targets. (#22212)

External Deps

• Added a new flag --incompatible_disable_native_repo_rules to disable native repo rule usage in WORKSPACE. All native repo rules now have a Starlark counterpart that can be used in both WORKSPACE and Bzlmod; see #22080 for more details. (#22203)
• The format for MODULE.bazel.lock is now less likely to result in merge conflicts and is updated incrementally, with only new files downloaded from registries and existing ones taken from the repository cache (if configured). (#22351)
• Added a new include() directive to MODULE.bazel files, which allows the root module file to be divided into multiple segments. (#22204)
• Fixed certain deadlocks in repo fetching with worker threads (--experimental_worker_for_repo_fetching=auto). (#22261, #22573)
• bzlmod git_override now accepts the strip_prefix arg and passes it to the underlying git_repository call. (#22137)
• The source.json file in registries now supports the overlay attribute in addition to patches. http_archive now has two more attributes, remote_file_urls and remote_file_integrity, to support this use case. (#22325, #22525)
• print statements in module files are now only executed for the root module and modules subject to non-registry overrides (e.g. local_path_override). (#22263)
• The new refresh value for --lockfile_mode behaves like the update mode, but additionally forces a refresh of mutable registry content (yanked versions and missing module versions) when switched to or from time to time while enabled. (#22371)
• bazel fetch now more reliably fetches repos required for a build by triggering the analysis phase. (#21841)
• Label instances passed to print or fail as positional arguments are now formatted with apparent repository names (optimized for human readability). (#22460)
• Changes to environment variables read via mctx.getenv now correctly invalidate module extensions. (#22541)
• Git merge conflicts in MODULE.bazel.lock files can be resolved automatically. See https://bazel.build/external/lockfile#automatic-resolution for the required setup. (#22650)

Local Execution

• Paths in the Linux sandbox are now again identical to those outside the sandbox, even with --incompatible_sandbox_hermetic_tmp. (#22407)

Remote Execution

• The combined coverage report produced via --combined_report=lcov is now announced on the BES via the new CoverageReport event. (#22327)
• The compact and full execution logs now contain start times for spawns (if available). (#22341)
• Added a new flag --incompatible_modify_execution_info_additive, which causes the --modify_execution_info flag to become additive when specified multiple times. (#22316)
• Added new flags --experimental_remote_output_service and --experimental_remote_output_service_output_path_prefix for remote output service

Starlark / Build Language

• Starlark min and max buitins now allow a key callback, similarly to sorted. (#21960)
• native.package_relative_label can now be used in rule initializers.

Refer to the full list of commits for more details.

Acknowledgements:

This release contains contributions from many people at Google, as well as Brentley Jones, Cameron Martin, Daniel Wagner-Hall, Douglas Thor, Fabian Meumertzheim, George Gensure, Isaac Torres, Keith Smiley, Mark Elliot, Romain Chossart, Son Luong Ngoc, Spencer Putt, and Thomas Weischuh.

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