Description of the problem / feature request:

If a workspace B depends on a workspace A, but uses the name C instead of A to name the workspace, the runfiles for workspace A will appear as C in the runfiles directory, breaking runfiles lookup for any library in workspace A.

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

• /tmp/test/a/WORKSPACE:

  workspace(name = "a")

• /tmp/test/a/BUILD:

  cc_library(
      name = "lib",
      srcs = ["lib.cc"],
      hdrs = ["lib.h"],
      data = ["data.txt"],
      visibility = ["//visibility:public"],
      deps = ["@bazel_tools//tools/cpp/runfiles"],
  )

• /tmp/test/a/lib.h:

  #include <string>
  void Test(const std::string& argv0);

• /tmp/test/a/lib.cc:

  #include "lib.h"
  
  #include <exception>
  #include <fstream>
  #include <iostream>
  #include <string>
  
  #include "tools/cpp/runfiles/runfiles.h"
  
  void Test(const std::string& argv0) {
    using bazel::tools::cpp::runfiles::Runfiles;
    const Runfiles* runfiles = Runfiles::Create(argv0);
    if (runfiles == nullptr) throw std::runtime_error("missing runfiles");
    std::string filename = runfiles->Rlocation("a/data.txt");
    if (filename.empty()) throw std::runtime_error("can't find runfile");
    std::ifstream stream(filename);
    stream.exceptions(std::ios::failbit | std::ios::badbit);
    if (!stream.is_open()) throw std::runtime_error("can't open runfile");
    std::cout.exceptions(std::ios::failbit | std::ios::badbit);
    std::cout << stream.rdbuf() << std::endl;
  }

• /tmp/test/a/data.txt:

  hello world
  

• /tmp/test/b/WORKSPACE:

  workspace(name = "b")
  
  local_repository(
      name = "c",  ## "a"
      path = "/tmp/test/a",
      repo_mapping = {"@c": "@a"},
  )

• /tmp/test/b/BUILD:

  cc_binary(
      name = "bin",
      srcs = ["bin.cc"],
      deps = ["@c//:lib"],  ## "@a//:lib"
  )

• /tmp/test/b/bin.cc:

  #include "lib.h"
  
  int main(int argc, char** argv) {
    Test(argc > 0 ? argv[0] : "");
  }

Then, cd /tmp/test/b && bazel run :bin will fail. In /tmp/test/b/bazel-bin/bin.runfiles there will be a subdirectory c (i.e. the name of the repository in b), but no subdirectory a (i.e. the actual name of the a repository).

The same works after renaming the local repository in b/WORKSPACE to a (as the comments indicate) and commenting out the repo_mapping attribute.

This is a problem because code in workspace A can't possible know that its clients import it under a different name. Therefore, code in workspace A can only refer to runfiles within its own workspace under the name that it has declared in its own WORKSPACE file (a in this example). This means that the runfiles actually have to be available under the a name, independent of any repository mappings. So Bazel should not only create a symlink c/data.txt in the runfiles directory, but also a/data.txt. More generally, any runfile should be available under both its local workspace name and any renamed/remapped workspace names. In case of name clashes, Bazel should signal an error, as it does for other name clashes.

What operating system are you running Bazel on?

macOS

What's the output of bazel info release?

release 5.0.0-homebrew

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

Irrelevant

Have you found anything relevant by searching the web?

There are probably many related discussions, but I haven't found a bug report about this specific issue itself. Probably the problem will become much worse with bzlmod due to its extensive use of repository renaming, and I'd consider it a blocker for enabling bzlmod by default.