Creating a New Workspace

This section describes how to create a new workspace maintaining programming contest problems using rules_contest.

What is a workspace?

A workspace is a concept of Bazel. A workspace is a directory on your filesystem that contains the source files needed to build and test programs. A workspace directory has a text file named WORKSPACE which might be empty or contain some workspace configurations.

Creating a workspace using the template (recommended)

We provide a Git repository containing a template workspace on GitHub. Click the “Use this template” button to create a new repository using the template. Use Git to checkout the repository to the local machine.

Standard workspace layout

Since Bazel rules provided by rules_contest make no assumption about file locations, you can organize your workspace files in any way you like. That said, if your workspace is for maintaining problems for a programming contest event, it is recommended to place workspace files in the following standard workspace layout. The template workspace has this layout.

Workspace root directory
- Problem 1 directory
  - Judge directory
  - Solution A directory
  - Solution B directory
  - …
- Problem 2 directory
  - Judge directory
  - Solution A directory
  - Solution B directory
- …

Settings

WORKSPACE

WORKSPACE file in the workspace directory should include the following external dependency to use rules_contest.

load("@bazel_tools//tools/build_defs/repo:git.bzl", "git_repository")

git_repository(
    name = "rules_contest",
    remote = "https://github.com/nya3jp/rules_contest",
    branch = "v0.8.1",
)

.gitignore (optional)

Bazel creates symbolic links named bazel-* in the workspace directory. It is recommended to add them to the .gitignore file so that you and your collaborators do not accidentally commit those them.

/bazel-*

.bazelrc (optional)

You can place .bazelrc file in the workspace directory to override Bazel’s default configurations. Some configurations are recommended.

# Enable optimization by default.
# Without this setting, C++ programs are much slower.
build -c opt

# Disable test coverage reporting by default.
# Without this setting, running any test requires downloading JDK, even if
# no Java program is in the workspace.
build --coverage_report_generator=@rules_contest//contest:fake_coverage_report_generator

prelude_bazel (optional)

tools/build_rules/prelude_bazel file is read by Bazel before evaluating any BUILD file. You can load rules provided by rules_contest to avoid explicitly loading them in each BUILD file.

load("@rules_contest//contest:defs.bzl",
    "dataset_generate",
    "dataset_derive",
    "dataset_merge",
    "dataset_test",
    "simple_judge",
    "solution_test",
    "sample_test",
    "jinja2_template",
    "markdown",
    "cc_yaml_library",
    "py_yaml_library")

Configuring continuous integration

It is likely that you want to set up a continuous integration to build and test your workspace periodically or on every commit. See the template repository for an example configuration of GitHub Actions.