Targets placed under source code subdirectory named "external" fail to compile with "file not found" errors

Description of the bug:

Consider a source code tree which has one of its directories named “external”:

"source root"
  | - foo
  |   | - dir with targets
  |   | - dir with more targets
  | - external
  |   | - dir with broken targets
  |   |   | - dir with more broken targets

It appears, that bazel (at least the version I’m using) can not correctly compile targets nested under top level “external” subdirectory.

I’m aware that bazel uses a subdirectory called “external” to store dependencies in the build tree, but this should not infringe on the ability of users to have a directory, so called, in their source tree.

What’s the simplest, easiest way to reproduce this bug? Please provide a minimal example if possible.

Rename one of the immediate subdirs of any source tree to “external”, try to build targets under that directory. I, obviously, had not tried all possible rules, but those I tried are broken (spurious “file not found” errors).

Which operating system are you running Bazel on?

Linux

What is the output of bazel info release?

release 5.2.0

If bazel info release returns development version or (@non-git), tell us how you built Bazel.

No response

What’s the output of git remote get-url origin; git rev-parse master; git rev-parse HEAD ?

No response

Have you found anything relevant by searching the web?

Tough luck searching for issues with “external” key word in the query. 😃

Any other information, logs, or outputs that you want to share?

No response

[oakad]

https://github.com/oakad/bazel_issue_16220

Here.

This works:

bazel run externa:external

This does not:

bazel run external:external

The subdirs are a copy of each other, up to 1 letter in the name.

[fmeum]

The first thing that breaks with --experimental_sibling_repository_layout is Stardoc, so I expect the downstream pipeline to be deeply red. If @tetromino’s ongoing work ends up resolving that, that could be a good time to run a meaningful first pipeline.