bazel rules_foreign_cc cmake_external - Unable to locate static library - c++

Question

I have used configure_make and other features of rules_foreign_cc for quite some time. This is a fantastic project. I have run into a simple but old C++ project that is giving me trouble. I suspect it's caused by the use of configure_in_place but that is just a wild guess. I spent a few hours tracing through the code but couldn't figure out a fix.
I am running bazel 3.2.0 on OSX High Sierra with the rules_foreign_cc master branch that has #403 merged. This PR enables running autoreconf via configure_make.
I could of course work around this issue by making a real Bazel project for this simple project. I am submitting this issue in the hopes that fixing a bug or correcting my user error will be an easy task for a rules_foreign_cc expert.
WORKSPACE
workspace(name = "foo")
http_archive(
name = "rules_foreign_cc",
strip_prefix = "rules_foreign_cc-master",
url = "https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_foreign_cc/archive/master.zip",
)
load("#rules_foreign_cc//:workspace_definitions.bzl", "rules_foreign_cc_dependencies")
rules_foreign_cc_dependencies()
all_content = """filegroup(name = "all", srcs = glob(["**"]), visibility = ["//visibility:public"])"""
http_archive(
name = "md5",
build_file_content = all_content,
strip_prefix = "MD5-master",
url = "https://github.com/devguy-com/MD5/archive/master.zip"
)
BUILD
load("#rules_foreign_cc//tools/build_defs:configure.bzl", "configure_make")
configure_make(
name = "md5",
autoreconf = True,
configure_command = "configure",
configure_in_place = True,
lib_source = "#md5//:all",
make_commands = [
"make libmd5.a",
],
out_lib_dir = "",
static_libraries = ["libmd5.a"],
visibility = ["//visibility:public"],
)
Run Bazel
$ bazel build --sandbox_debug -s --verbose_failures --sandbox_debug md5
Build Output
The complete build output is available online thanks to BuildBuddy.
Pertinent snippets:
1.
export BUILD_LOG="bazel-out/darwin-fastbuild/bin/md5/logs/Configure.log
2.
ERROR: /Users/user/smart/mac/pe-compute/2019-11-30/BUILD:4:15: output
'md5/libmd5.a' was not created
$ cat bazel-out/darwin-fastbuild/bin/md5/logs/Configure.log
/private/var/tmp/_bazel_user/a146b90161b9da4530683d7f8b2053fd/sandbox/darwin-sandbox/12/execroot/exd_edge_compute/external/local_config_cc/wrapped_clang -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=1 -fstack-protector -fcolor-diagnostics -Wall -Wthread-safety -Wself-assign -fno-omit-frame-pointer -O0 -DDEBUG -std=c++11 -isysroot __BAZEL_XCODE_SDKROOT__ -F__BAZEL_XCODE_SDKROOT__/System/Library/Frameworks -F__BAZEL_XCODE_DEVELOPER_DIR__/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/Library/Frameworks -mmacosx-version-min=10.12 -no-canonical-prefixes -Wno-builtin-macro-redefined -D__DATE__="redacted" -D__TIMESTAMP__="redacted" -D__TIME__="redacted" -c -o src/md5.o src/md5.cpp
ar cr libmd5.a src/md5.o
ranlib libmd5.a
find: /var/folders/3l/rrlrzd555yl84h_l_nytc4w00000gp/T/tmp.XRqtHHSM/md5: No
such file or directory
Root Cause
The output library libmd5.a is located at
/var/folders/3l/rrlrzd555yl84h_l_nytc4w00000gp/T/tmp.XRqtHHSM.
However, configure_make is looking in that directory's md5 subdirectory.
Using out_lib_dir=".." does not solve the problem. out_lib_dir must be set to an empty string because this particular project creates the library in the project's root directory.
$ ls -l /var/folders/3l/rrlrzd555yl84h_l_nytc4w00000gp/T/tmp.XRqtHHSM
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 139 Jun 10 06:36 BUILD.bazel -> /private/var/tmp/_bazel_user/a146b90161b9da4530683d7f8b2053fd/sandbox/darwin-sandbox/1/execroot/exd_edge_compute/external/md5/BUILD.bazel
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 135 Jun 10 06:36 LICENSE -> /private/var/tmp/_bazel_user/a146b90161b9da4530683d7f8b2053fd/sandbox/darwin-sandbox/1/execroot/exd_edge_compute/external/md5/LICENSE
-rw-r--r-- 1 user staff 2573 Jun 10 06:36 Makefile
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 139 Jun 10 06:36 Makefile.in -> /private/var/tmp/_bazel_user/a146b90161b9da4530683d7f8b2053fd/sandbox/darwin-sandbox/1/execroot/exd_edge_compute/external/md5/Makefile.in
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 134 Jun 10 06:36 README -> /private/var/tmp/_bazel_user/a146b90161b9da4530683d7f8b2053fd/sandbox/darwin-sandbox/1/execroot/exd_edge_compute/external/md5/README
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 137 Jun 10 06:36 WORKSPACE -> /private/var/tmp/_bazel_user/a146b90161b9da4530683d7f8b2053fd/sandbox/darwin-sandbox/1/execroot/exd_edge_compute/external/md5/WORKSPACE
drwxr-xr-x 7 user staff 224 Jun 10 06:36 autom4te.cache
drwxr-xr-x 3 user staff 96 Jun 10 06:36 config
-rw-r--r-- 1 user staff 23872 Jun 10 06:36 config.log
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 32037 Jun 10 06:36 config.status
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 142714 Jun 10 06:36 configure
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 140 Jun 10 06:36 configure.ac -> /private/var/tmp/_bazel_user/a146b90161b9da4530683d7f8b2053fd/sandbox/darwin-sandbox/1/execroot/exd_edge_compute/external/md5/configure.ac
-rw-r--r-- 1 user staff 12560 Jun 10 06:36 libmd5.a
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 139 Jun 10 06:36 rfc1321.txt -> /private/var/tmp/_bazel_user/a146b90161b9da4530683d7f8b2053fd/sandbox/darwin-sandbox/1/execroot/exd_edge_compute/external/md5/rfc1321.txt
drwxr-xr-x 8 user staff 256 Jun 10 06:36 src
drwxr-xr-x 3 user staff 96 Jun 10 06:36 tests