bazelbuild / bazelbuild/bazel

Creating a git branch that ends in "BUILD" confuses Bazel

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#23,431 3 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub
help wanted P3 team-Core team-OSS type: bug
Dominant language
Java
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Description

### Description of the bug:

If you create a git branch like `ob/BUILD` or `ob/build` (on macOS where the file system is case insensitive) bazel thinks it's a build file and chokes on it.

### Which category does this issue belong to?

Core

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

```shell
$ git init demo
$ cd demo
$ touch MODULE.bazel WORKSPACE
$ git add -A
$ git commit -am "init bazel repo"
[main (root-commit) f45e299] init bazel repo
2 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 MODULE.bazel
create mode 100644 WORKSPACE
$ git checkout -b ob/build
Switched to a new branch 'ob/build'
$ bazel build //...
ERROR: /Users/obonilla/tmp/demo/.git/logs/refs/heads/ob/BUILD:1:1: invalid octal literal: 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 (use '0o000000000000000000000000000000000000000')
ERROR: /Users/obonilla/tmp/demo/.git/logs/refs/heads/ob/BUILD:1:42: syntax error at 'f45e29939884f14e45e1dac396a2534ce168ee1c': expected newline
ERROR: /Users/obonilla/tmp/demo/.git/logs/refs/heads/ob/BUILD:1:104: invalid character: '@'
ERROR: /Users/obonilla/tmp/demo/.git/logs/refs/heads/ob/BUILD:1:128: invalid octal literal: 0700 (use '0o700')
ERROR: /Users/obonilla/tmp/demo/.git/logs/refs/heads/ob/BUILD:1:149: keyword 'from' not supported
ERROR: /Users/obonilla/tmp/demo/.git/refs/heads/ob/BUILD:1:1: name 'f45e29939884f14e45e1dac396a2534ce168ee1c' is not defined
ERROR: package contains errors: .git/logs/refs/heads/ob
ERROR: package contains errors: .git/refs/heads/ob
WARNING: Target pattern parsing failed.
ERROR: Skipping '//...': Error evaluating '//...': error loading package '.git/logs/refs/heads/ob': Package '.git/logs/refs/heads/ob' contains errors
ERROR: Error evaluating '//...': error loading package '.git/logs/refs/heads/ob': Package '.git/logs/refs/heads/ob' contains errors
INFO: Elapsed time: 2.027s
INFO: 0 processes.
ERROR: Build did NOT complete successfully
```

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

macOS

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

release 7.3.1

### If `bazel info release` returns `development version` or `(@non-git)`, tell us how you built Bazel.

_No response_

### What's the output of `git remote get-url origin; git rev-parse HEAD` ?

_No response_

### If this is a regression, please try to identify the Bazel commit where the bug was introduced with bazelisk --bisect.

_No response_

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

_No response_

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

_No response_

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Reproduce the failure on macOS with a branch such as ob/build, then run bazel build //... in the demo repository. Inspect how Bazel interprets the mentioned .git/refs/heads/ob/BUILD and .git/logs/refs/heads/ob paths during package discovery. Done means builds no longer treat Git branch metadata as BUILD files.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
git
Domain
build-system
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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