Bazel workspaces for libraries packaged in openSUSE which allow to link those libraries dynamically to software build by Bazel.
There is a difference in how software is build in Linux distributions and in projects using Bazel.
The most of software built by Bazel usually bundles libraries. The usual way is to download tarballs or git repositories and them build them as static libraries. That approach is good for developers who are focused only on that one particular project.
However, that approach doesn't work so well for Linux distributions. In distros like openSUSE we need to ensure that updates or security fixes for the particular are applied only once to have the effect on all packages and the whole operating system. That's why globally available libraries and dynamic linking is the best approach for us.
Bazel allows to override repositories, so this project uses that possibility to
provide custom repositories which allow to link libraries dynamically and use
*-devel packages in openSUSE as build dependencies.
--override_repository="repository_name=/location_of_this_git_repo/repository"
Or if you installed bazel-workspaces package in openSUSE:
--override_repository="repository_name=/usr/share/bazel-workspaces/repository"
Or in rpmspec:
--override_repository="repository_name=%{_datadir}/bazel-workspaces/repository"
Let's assume that your Bazel project depends on gperftools. After installing the
bazel-workspaces package, build your project like:
bazel build \
--override_repository="com_github_gperftools_gperftools=/usr/share/bazel-workspaces/gperftools" \
//...