how to install and use bazel on ubuntu 16.04

Publish Date: 2018-08-21

Word Count: 629

Read Times: 4 Min

Read Count:

How to Install

Bazel is an open-source build and test tool similar to Make, Maven, and Gradle. It uses a human-readable, high-level build language. Bazel supports projects in multiple languages and builds outputs for multiple platforms. Bazel supports large codebases across multiple repositories, and large numbers of users.

support language and platform:

c++
java
android
ios

Using binary installer

sudo apt-get install pkg-config zip g++ zlib1g-dev unzip python

#download `bazel-0.16.1-installer-linux-x86_64.sh` from `https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/releases`

chmod +x bazel-0.16.1-installer-linux-x86_64.sh
./bazel-0.16.1-installer-linux-x86_64.sh --user
# The --user flag installs Bazel to the $HOME/bin directory on your system and sets the .bazelrc path to $HOME/.bazelrc.

vim .bashrc
export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/bin"

Using Bazel custom APT repository

unable to access googleapis.com

sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk

echo "deb [arch=amd64] http://storage.googleapis.com/bazel-apt stable jdk1.8" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/bazel.list
curl https://bazel.build/bazel-release.pub.gpg | sudo apt-key add -


sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install bazel
sudo apt-get upgrade bazel

Tutorial

get examples

git clone https://github.com/bazelbuild/examples/

folder structure

cpp-tutorial/
├── README.md
├── stage1
│   ├── main
│   │   ├── BUILD
│   │   └── hello-world.cc
│   ├── README.md
│   └── WORKSPACE
├── stage2
│   ├── main
│   │   ├── BUILD
│   │   ├── hello-greet.cc
│   │   ├── hello-greet.h
│   │   └── hello-world.cc
│   ├── README.md
│   └── WORKSPACE
└── stage3
    ├── lib
    │   ├── BUILD
    │   ├── hello-time.cc
    │   └── hello-time.h
    ├── main
    │   ├── BUILD
    │   ├── hello-greet.cc
    │   ├── hello-greet.h
    │   └── hello-world.cc
    ├── README.md
    └── WORKSPACE

7 directories, 20 files

stage1

Understand the BUILD file

cpp-tutorial/stage1/main/BUILD

cc_binary(
    name = "hello-world",
    srcs = ["hello-world.cc"],
)

build target

cd stage1
bazel build //main:hello-world

output

INFO: Found 1 target...
Target //main:hello-world up-to-date:
  bazel-bin/main/hello-world
INFO: Elapsed time: 2.267s, Critical Path: 0.25s

test binary

bazel-bin/main/hello-world

Review the dependency graph

install graphviz

sudo apt install graphviz xdot

vizualize

bazel query --nohost_deps --noimplicit_deps 'deps(//main:hello-world)' --output graph
xdot <(bazel query --nohost_deps --noimplicit_deps 'deps(//main:hello-world)' --output graph)

graph

png

stage2

Specify multiple build targets

cpp-tutorial/stage2/main/BUILD

cc_library(
    name = "hello-greet",
    srcs = ["hello-greet.cc"],
    hdrs = ["hello-greet.h"],
)

cc_binary(
    name = "hello-world",
    srcs = ["hello-world.cc"],
    deps = [
        ":hello-greet",
    ],
)

build target

cd stage2
bazel build //main:hello-world

output

INFO: Found 1 target...
Target //main:hello-world up-to-date:
  bazel-bin/main/hello-world
INFO: Elapsed time: 2.267s, Critical Path: 0.25s

test binary

bazel-bin/main/hello-world

graph

png

stage3

Use multiple packages

folder structure

└──stage3
   ├── main
   │   ├── BUILD
   │   ├── hello-world.cc
   │   ├── hello-greet.cc
   │   └── hello-greet.h
   ├── lib
   │   ├── BUILD
   │   ├── hello-time.cc
   │   └── hello-time.h
   └── WORKSPACE

lib/BUILD

cc_library(
    name = "hello-time",
    srcs = ["hello-time.cc"],
    hdrs = ["hello-time.h"],
    visibility = ["//main:__pkg__"],
)

This is because by default targets are only visible to other targets in the same BUILD file.

main/BUILD

cc_library(
    name = "hello-greet",
    srcs = ["hello-greet.cc"],
    hdrs = ["hello-greet.h"],
)

cc_binary(
    name = "hello-world",
    srcs = ["hello-world.cc"],
    deps = [
        ":hello-greet",
        "//lib:hello-time",
    ],
)

build target

cd stage3
bazel build //main:hello-world

output

INFO: Found 1 target...
Target //main:hello-world up-to-date:
  bazel-bin/main/hello-world
INFO: Elapsed time: 2.267s, Critical Path: 0.25s

test binary

bazel-bin/main/hello-world

graph

png

Use labels to reference targets

//path/to/package:target-name

When referencing targets within the same package, you can skip the package path and just use //:target-name.
When referencing targets within the same BUILD file, you can even skip the // workspace root identifier and just use :target-name.