1# Protobuf packaging 2 3This directory contains Bazel rules for building packaging and distribution 4artifacts. 5 6*Everything in this directory should be considered internal and subject to 7change.* 8 9## Protocol compiler binary packaging 10 11The protocol compiler is used in binary form in various places. There are rules 12which package it, along with commonly used `.proto` files, for distribution. 13 14## Source distribution packaging 15 16Protobuf releases include source distributions, sliced by target language (C++, 17Java, etc.). There are rules in this package to define those source archives. 18These depend upon `pkg_files` rules elsewhere in the repo to get the contents. 19 20The source distribution files should include the outputs from `autogen.sh`, but 21this isn't something we can reliably do from Bazel. To produce fully functioning 22source distributions, run `autogen.sh` before building the archives (this 23populates the necessary files directly into the source tree). 24 25## C++ runtime binary distribution 26 27The `cc_dist_library` rule creates composite libraries from several other 28`cc_library` targets. Bazel uses a "fine-grained" library model, where each 29`cc_library` produces its own library artifacts, without transitive 30dependencies. The `cc_dist_library` rule combines several other libraries 31together, creating a single library that may be suitable for distribution. 32