googletest version 1.17.0 not compatible with Bazel 9.0

[TomPreisner]

I have been setting up a project and incorporating the googletest version 1.17.0 into it via

bazel_dep(name = "googletest", version = "1.17.0")

However, I am running into this error:

WARNING: Build option --cxxopt has changed, discarding analysis cache (this can be expensive, see https://bazel.build/advanced/performance/iteration-speed). ERROR: Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:/users/tprei/_bazel_tprei/tonzrp22/external/googletest+/BUILD.bazel", line 79, column 11, in <toplevel> cc_library( File "/virtual_builtins_bzl/bazel/exports.bzl", line 40, column 9, in _removed_rule_failure Error in fail: This rule has been removed from Bazel. Please add a load() statement for it. This can also be done automatically by running: buildifier --lint=fix <path-to-BUILD-or-bzl-file>

It seems that as of Bazel 9.0 all cc_* rules were migrated to cc_rules
https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/releases/tag/9.0.0

All C++-related rules (including cc_binary, cc_library, etc.) have been removed from Bazel and are now located in rules_cc.

Is there a workaround for this or will I need to rollback to an earlier Bazel version to use the googletest libraries?

Thanks!

[FFMG]

1.17.0 is the latest google test version, so, although I have not used Bazel myself, I would say the issue is on their side, not GoogleTest.

Looking at your code, it seems to me that the workaround would be to use something like

bazel_dep(name = "googletest", version = "1.16.0")

or whatever number bazel supports.

[TomPreisner]

I tracked down the issue and the problem is that the newest version of Bazel removed the built in aliases for the cc_binary, cc_library, entries starting in version 9.0. Now they need to be explicitly loaded by the bazel file that uses them. Bazel 9.0 is new as of two weeks ago or so, I am guessing the next version of google test will be updated to the new specifications.
I added a .bazelversion file in the project to keep the bazel version capped at 8.5.1 which resolves the issue for me.

[jbcoe]

I 'fixed' the bazel 9.0 incompatibility issue in a personal project by using a git override and taking googletest from HEAD. I don't think this is an ideal approach, what we really need is a bazel 9.0-compatible tagged release.

jbcoe/value_types#620

bazel_dep(
    name = "googletest",
    version = "1.17.0",
    repo_name = "com_google_googletest",
)

# Use a git override as the latest stable version of googletest does not support bazel 9.0.
git_override(
    module_name = "googletest",
    branch = "main",
    remote = "https://github.com/google/googletest.git",
)