psigen / bazel-issue-15662

`rlocation` returns different results for a target and an alias of that target

bazel-issue-15662

This repository demonstrates an inconsistency in the behavior of an alias when used with the rlocation/manifest system provided by the bash runfiles in @bazel_tools.

We define a simple sh_binary called \\:foo1, and create an alias target \\:foo2 that refers to \\:foo1. We then create another sh_binary called \\:bar that depends on the foo1 and foo2 target and resolves them using $(rlocation ...).

The desired behavior would be for rlocation calls on both targets to resolve to the same path, since they represent the same resource. However, the actual behavior is that true target returns a result, while the alias is not found.

$ bazel run //:bar
INFO: Analyzed target //:bar (0 packages loaded, 0 targets configured).
INFO: Found 1 target...
Target //:bar up-to-date:
  bazel-bin/bar
INFO: Elapsed time: 0.113s, Critical Path: 0.00s
INFO: 2 processes: 2 internal.
INFO: Build completed successfully, 2 total actions
INFO: Build completed successfully, 2 total actions
---------------------------------------------------
INFO[runfiles.bash]: rlocation(com_example_bazel/foo1): start
INFO[runfiles.bash]: rlocation(com_example_bazel/foo1): looking in RUNFILES_MANIFEST_FILE (/home/pras/.cache/bazel/_bazel_pras/e1db911261e74a0af01d8103864c3772/execroot/com_example_bazel/bazel-out/k8-fastbuild/bin/bar.runfiles_manifest)
INFO[runfiles.bash]: rlocation(com_example_bazel/foo1): found in manifest as (/home/pras/.cache/bazel/_bazel_pras/e1db911261e74a0af01d8103864c3772/execroot/com_example_bazel/bazel-out/k8-fastbuild/bin/foo1)
---------------------------------------------------
INFO[runfiles.bash]: rlocation(com_example_bazel/foo2): start
INFO[runfiles.bash]: rlocation(com_example_bazel/foo2): looking in RUNFILES_MANIFEST_FILE (/home/pras/.cache/bazel/_bazel_pras/e1db911261e74a0af01d8103864c3772/execroot/com_example_bazel/bazel-out/k8-fastbuild/bin/bar.runfiles_manifest)
INFO[runfiles.bash]: rlocation(com_example_bazel/foo2): not found in manifest
---------------------------------------------------
The following rlocation outputs should be the same:
  '$(rlocation com_example_bazel/foo1)' = /home/pras/.cache/bazel/_bazel_pras/e1db911261e74a0af01d8103864c3772/execroot/com_example_bazel/bazel-out/k8-fastbuild/bin/foo1
  '$(rlocation com_example_bazel/foo2)' =