bazelbuild / bazelbuild/bazel

https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/issues/4057 has reappeared with Bazel 7

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#20,957 3 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
not stale P3 team-Rules-CPP type: bug
Dominant language
Java
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Description

### Description of the bug:

Building a `cc_library` without symbols now prints a warning (due to the switch to the Unix CC toolchain in Bazel 7 on macOS).

### Which category does this issue belong to?

C++/Objective-C Rules

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

Same as https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/issues/4057: create a trivial workspace with an empty `empty.c` and a BUILD file like:

```python
cc_library(
name = "empty",
srcs = ["empty.c"],
linkstatic = 1,
)
```

Then, `bazel build //:empty` will print a warning like

```
INFO: From Linking libempty.a:
warning: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/libtool: archive library: bazel-out/darwin_arm64-fastbuild/bin/libempty.a the table of contents is empty (no object file members in the library define global symbols)
```

This doesn't happen in Bazel 6 (which uses the Xcode toolchain by default, where this issue has been fixed by https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/issues/4057 and/or https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/issues/5981).

### Which operating system are you running Bazel on?

macOS 14.2.1 (23C71)

### What is the output of `bazel info release`?

release 7.0.1

### 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` ?

```text
N/A
```

### Is this a regression? If yes, please try to identify the Bazel commit where the bug was introduced.

Technically a regression (no warning in Bazel 6), though this probably was always present in the Unix toolchain.

### Have you found anything relevant by searching the web?

Same as https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/issues/4057 and https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/issues/5981, just for the Unix toolchain instead of the Xcode one.

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

_No response_

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start with the Unix CC toolchain and reproduce the issue using the empty.c and BUILD example with Bazel 7.0.1 on macOS. Compare the archive-linking behavior with Bazel 6 and the earlier Xcode-toolchain issues 4057 and 5981. Done means building the empty cc_library no longer prints the empty-table-of-contents warning.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
c, cpp, macos
Domain
build-system
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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