What version of gazelle are you using?

built from head

What version of rules_go are you using?

n/a

What version of Bazel are you using?

 % bazel version
Build label: 6.2.0-homebrew
Build target: bazel-out/darwin_arm64-opt/bin/src/main/java/com/google/devtools/build/lib/bazel/BazelServer_deploy.jar
Build time: Tue Jan 1 00:00:00 1980 (315532800)
Build timestamp: 315532800
Build timestamp as int: 315532800

Does this issue reproduce with the latest releases of all the above?

yes

What operating system and processor architecture are you using?

macOS 13.3.1 (22E261), arm

What did you do?

I am experimenting with a C++ gazelle extension. I am working on resolving to external repositories:

# WORKSPACE
http_archive(
  name = "com_google_absl",
  urls = ["https://github.com/abseil/abseil-cpp/archive/e85868cbef04e8e8ff518e09b6af3970bbe5d2eb.zip"],
  strip_prefix = "abseil-cpp-e85868cbef04e8e8ff518e09b6af3970bbe5d2eb",
)

Gazelle finds this under the external/com_google_absl directory. I rewrite all Imports under the external directory similar to this logic

//external/bar/foo:test -> @bar//foo:test

The problem is, that gazelle reformats all the build files in that directory, and this breaks bazel (because the external files are supposed to be "readonly"). We cant use gazelle:ignore directive, because we dont "control" the build files that are not properly formatted.

So my idea was to introduce a directive that allows to ignore a subtree of directories: In the root BUILD file, you could add this to not format files under external or other directories.

example usage

# BUILD
# gazelle:ignore_recursive external

Will not update anything under external but still process them.

I am happy to try to contribute a feature like this.