What is the real difference between compile and library? about rules_proto_grpc

[aaliddell]

Yep 👍

[aaliddell]

The compile rules will simply run protoc on the inputs and return the output files; it's then up to you to integrate these files into your build with the correct prefixes.

The library rules take the files from protoc and wrap them in a py_library target that has the import path setup etc, so that your py_binary targets can directly depend on this library.

[yeukhon]

Oh, so let me put this more plainly.
They both generate the same .py file, but for the purpose of BUILD targets, the library rule is a regular py_library that I can use like any other py_library, while the compile rule does none of that, just the file generation alone.
Thanks