Release 4.2 - June 2021

[philwo]

Status of Bazel 4.2

This release will use Bazel 4.1.0 as its baseline and we will apply selected cherry-picks and backports on top of it. Please request cherry-picks that you'd like to get into Bazel 4.2.0 here via a comment.

• Expected release date: June 2021
• List of release blockers

To report a release-blocking bug, please file a bug using the Release blocker label, and cc me.

Task list:

• Pick release baseline: c4975ef
• Create release candidate: https://releases.bazel.build/4.2.0/rc1/
• Check downstream projects: https://buildkite.com/bazel/bazel-at-head-plus-downstream/builds/2105
• Create draft release announcement
• Send for review the release announcement PR: Add blog post for Bazel 4.2.0. bazel-blog#258
• Push the release, notify package maintainers: ...
• Update the documentation
• Push the blog post
• Update the release page

[philwo]

Requested cherry picks

Unreviewed:

• 8ba48ad in Release 4.1 - May 2021 #13099 (comment)
• 48eee8b in Release 4.1 - May 2021 #13099 (comment)
• 763dd0c in Release 4.1 - May 2021 #13099 (comment)
• c228558 in Release 4.1 - May 2021 #13099 (comment)
• 2d990cf in Release 4.1 - May 2021 #13099 (comment)
• 5b95d91 in Release 4.1 - May 2021 #13099 (comment)
• 779d660 in Release 4.1 - May 2021 #13099 (comment)
• f4b5e02 in Release 4.1 - May 2021 #13099 (comment)
• b2231c5 in Release 4.1 - May 2021 #13099 (comment)
• 1a35dc5 in Release 4.1 - May 2021 #13099 (comment)
• aaae8ce in Release 4.1 - May 2021 #13099 (comment)
• 6dc941e in Release 4.1 - May 2021 #13099 (comment)
• c9f9eed in Release 4.1 - May 2021 #13099 (comment)
• 2f0927a in Bazel Rolling Releases #13505 (comment)
• fd9cffd in Bazel Rolling Releases #13505 (comment)
• 42e05db in Bazel Rolling Releases #13505 (comment)

Accepted:

• ...

Rejected:

• ...

[quval]

Would it be possible to cherry-pick 1e258d2, d067669, f1e0d34 and 8186fbb again into 4.2.0, as well as the commits fixing #13459?

[thii]

Can I request these two? Some rulesets like rules_swift are pretty aggressive on using these new features.

• 50ce3f9: starlark: allow lambda expressions
• 5ca2064: starlark: allow nested def statements

[ahumesky]

Could we please have 80feea0 for the android rules, thanks!

[ahumesky]

And also a followup 0e65273 for the android rules

[cpsauer]

Any chance we could cherrypick 1a0285c?

[gregestren]

Request:

• 64157a5 Respect Starlark options with values in removeStarlarkOptions(), in "bazel clean" failure when Starlark options present in "build" lines in .bazelrc #12808 (comment)

[brentleyjones]

Can we also include 7643d3a?

[brentleyjones]

Also this one: 95c7931

[mai93]

Can you please include 1bca1bd?

[brentleyjones]

Can we please include f0983df?

[martis42]

Please include cac82cf

[csmulhern]

Can we include b06f495?

[FaBrand]

Can this bugfix be included 382fd64 ?

[meteorcloudy]

We'll need b4b0c32 to fix #13514

[jablin]

Please include 5d7df56 .

[philsc]

Can we get 9868455 and d052ece cherry-picked?
The former is required for the latter to apply cleanly.

EDIT: It appears that 9868455 isn't actually necessary for a cherry-pick of d052ece. I was convinced that it was, apologies.

[jesec]

Please consider:

• bcce6dd (Bazel 3.7.0 can't be compiled on Alpine linux #12460)
• 1c29dff (Supporting 64bit RISC-V #12683)
• 52b517f (third_party: replace "reactive_streams" and "rxjava3" in Debian build #13544)

Thanks.

[coeuvre]

Please include following commits for remote execution (in committed order):

• ae53991 Remote: Add RemoteExecutionService as a layer between spawn execution and remote execution.
• cd477f2 Pass only the top-level artifacts to ExecutorLifecycleListener and make the computation more efficient.
• 1e803ab Remove default build options.
• 275c54c Change the signature of tree artifact expansion to allow passing a reference to children from TreeArtifactValue to ArtifactExpanderImpl.
• 300c11e Separate Fileset-symlink errors out from I/O exceptions, and propagate them everywhere.
• fd9cffd Suppress interrupted status during pool closure
• 0c07c2e Remote: Add remoteCacheable key to execution log
• 95c7931 Remote: Add remoteCacheHits to BEP BuildMetrics.
• 7643d3a Remote: Register "remote" strategy even if remote execution is not available.
• 4ca8946 Remote: Add --experimental_capture_corrupted_outputs flag.
• f0983df Remote: Report checking cache status before the action is scheduled to run remotely.
• 4261b2a Inclusive naming fixit
• ba5b2a7 when writing to local disk cache, open files later in order to avoid "too many open files"
• 97fb2cf Remote: Fix a bug that the XML generation is executed even if test.xml is generated when build with --remote_download_minimal.
• 2ace97f Move ActionInputHelper to a separate target.
• af42653 Automatic code cleanup.
• 07a84ce Remote: Another attempt to fix the CancellationException error in AsyncTaskCache caused by a race condition.
• 0f812eb Remote: Display download progress when actions are downloading outputs from remote cache.
• Remote: Do not upload empty output to remote cache. #13594

[katre]

I plan to start assembling the branch for this release on Monday, July 12, so expect further updates around then.

It's a long list of cherrypicks so it may take some time to determine which can be applied and which cannot.

[jayconrod]

Could we please include c9f9eed? It will unblock some work on Go static analysis.

[katre]

Bazel 4.2.1 is now live: https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/releases/tag/4.2.1

Please update your packages if possible: @vbatts @petemounce @excitoon

[anthpi]

When building 4.2.0 and 4.2.1 I get "tools/jdk/BUILD:41:15: //tools/jdk:dummy_toolchain: missing value for mandatory attribute 'java_runtime' in 'java_toolchain' rule" error. Any idea what could cause it?

[katre]

@anthpi Please file a separate issue with reproduction instructions and we'll investigate.

[omarzl]

Hello there! These are my first contributions to the repo, I sent a cherry pick pr #14086 to 4.2.1 but it is already released, can a 4.2.2 or 4.3.0 be opened? Or should I send it to 5.0? Thanks!

[philwo]

@omarzl Your change will definitely be included as part of Bazel 5.0, there's no action required on your side for this.

It looks pretty low risk, so if we decide to make a Bazel 4.3 release, we can consider it for cherry picking there. If I misunderstood this change and that's actually a fix for a regression or new bug in Bazel 4.2, please let me know - then we should consider creating a patch release (4.2.2).

[omarzl]

Hi @philwo, perfectly fine in 5.0 or 4.3 (if exists), thank you!

[limdor]

In case anyone here has an idea, we have detected a possible regression between Bazel 4.0.0 and Bazel 4.2.1 regarding the command line parameter --remote_max_connections that seems to be ignored. Unfortunately it is still quite fresh and we do not have a reproducible example. We will create a ticket as soon as we have some more information.

[limdor]

And here the ticket #14178

[katre]

Bazel 5.0 has just been cut, so we won't be releasing any more versions in the 4.2 series. We can definitely look into getting #14178 addressed for 5.0, however.

[limdor]

we won't be releasing any more versions in the 4.2 series

Can you clarify that please? Should we expect to not have anymore a Bazel 4.X release or only for the 4.2 series and would be a 4.3 series? Not releasing anymore a Bazel 4.X release would contradict with what was announced when introducing LTS
https://blog.bazel.build/2020/11/10/long-term-support-release.html

[katre]

You're right, I misunderstood the situation. We won't be preparing any further releases in the 4.x series on a regular schedule, but any serious regressions or other bugs we may prepare a further release in the 4.x series.

If there is a fix for #14178 and it applies clearly on top of 4.2 we can look at a 4.3 release. We will not be considering feature cherrypicks for 4.3, however.

[limdor]

You're right, I misunderstood the situation. We won't be preparing any further releases in the 4.x series on a regular schedule, but any serious regressions or other bugs we may prepare a further release in the 4.x series.

Thanks for the clarification.

[limdor]

@katre there is a fix for #14178 that went in with 063b5c9
I just tried to cherry pick this commit on top of the 4.2.1 tag and it is applied cleaned.
Could you and the Bazel team consider a 4.3 release and answer here about the decision?
Thanks

[meteorcloudy]

We are doing a 4.2.2 patch release for #14178 and probably #14273.
Please send PRs for the fixes to https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/tree/release-4.2.2-patches

[limdor]

We are doing a 4.2.2 patch release for #14178 and probably #14273. Please send PRs for the fixes to https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/tree/release-4.2.2-patches

Great!, I created a PR for #14178, if I should add some special tag just let me know #14318 currently tests are running

[bjacklyn]

Please consider #13985 as well -- fixes bazel UI bug introduced in 4.2.0

[meteorcloudy]

@bjacklyn Can you also send a PR to the release-4.2.2-patches branch?

[meteorcloudy]

Bazel 4.2.2rc1 is now available: https://releases.bazel.build/4.2.2/rc1/index.html

Cherry-picks since 4.2.1:

• 039c72e
• af74287
• 748138f
• dd8fe77

Downstream tests haven't show any breakage from the Bazel side: https://buildkite.com/bazel/bazel-at-head-plus-downstream/builds/2262

[meteorcloudy]

Bazel 4.2.2 is now live: https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/releases/tag/4.2.2

Please update your packages if possible: @vbatts @petemounce @excitoon

[petemounce]

Published!