Bazel 5.4.0 release candidate 1 is available for testing

[Kshyanashree Mohapatra]

Bazel 5.4.0rc1 is now available for those that want to try it out.

You can download it from:
  https://releases.bazel.build/5.4.0/rc1/index.html

Please report regressions to https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/issues as soon as possible.

The release notes for version 5.4.0 are:

# Release 5.4.0rc1 (2022-12-01)

Baseline: 8d66a4171baddcbe1569972f019e54130111202c

Cherry picks:

   + ece17d5d4e74d67dd869cbd1951ca1001423b472:
     Add `$(rlocationpath(s) ...)` expansion (#16668)
   + f02bcf8d8b0d00ecdd06ea0a45ba4f52e436597c:
     Fix identical gcov json file name problem
   + 0696b8a728bd205c1a12cc5a3e0891c87113c95a:
     Upgrade google-http-client and google-http-client-gson.
   + 42a3dbb2d47a321d746ee0f1f89603da329f5852:
     Move analysis_test into testing.analysis_test (#16702)
   + b55f3222a5e9d1e4267ccf5cbf71643e8c492b32:
     Fix hanging issue when Bazel failed to upload action inputs
     (#16819)
   + 2f0f3e1253e1086496d4adf1a136b5473db5a693:
     [5.4.0] Add integration tests for
     --experimental_credential_helper. (#16880)
   + 6d2d68d95abedac6a646eafcca04e6856c87ab3c:
     [5.4.0] Keep credentials cached across build commands. (#16884)

Incompatible changes:
  - GrpcRemoteDownloader only includes relevant headers instead of sending all credentials.
    Closes #16439.
  - analysis_test moved into testing.analysis_test

Important changes:
  - alias() can now select() directly on constraint_value()
    Fixes https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/issues/13047.
    

Closes #14310.
  - Fixed an issue where Bazel could erroneously report a test passes
    in coverage mode without actually running the test.
  - Make protocOpts() publicly accessible.
  - Add coverage configuration fragment, used to expose
    output_generator label.
  - Bazel now no longer includes system headers on macOS in coverage
    reports (#14969).

    Closes #14971.
  - Starlark test rules can use the new inherited_environment
    parameter of testing.TestEnvironment to specify environment  variables

    whose values should be inherited from the shell environment.

    Closes #14849.
  - none
    

    RELNOTES:none

  - Enable merging permissions during Android manifest merging with
    the --merge_android_manifest_permissions flag.
  - Added new register_{execution_platforms,toolchains} directives to
    the MODULE.bazel file, to replace the
    {execution_platforms,toolchains}_to_register attributes on the
    module() directive.
  - Add support for fetching RPC credentials from credential helper.

    Progress on https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/issues/15856

    Closes #15947.
  - `cquery`'s new output mode
    [`--output=files`](https://bazel.build/docs/cquery#files-output)
    lists the output files of the targets matching the query. It
    takes the current value of `--output_groups` into account.

    Closes #15552.
  - Fix for desugaring failure on Bazel+Android+Windows build
    scenario.
  - The new path variable `$(rlocationpath ...)` and its plural form
    `$(rlocationpaths ...)` can be used to expand labels to the paths
    accepted by the `Rlocation` function of runfiles libraries. This
    is the preferred way to access data dependencies at runtime and
    works on all platforms, even when runfiles are not enabled (e.g.,
    on Windows by default).

    Work towards #16124

    Fixes #10923

    Closes #16667.

This release contains contributions from many people at Google, as well as Andreas Fuchs, Benjamin Peterson, Brentley Jones, Chenchu Kolli, Dan Fleming, Danny Wolf, Emil Kattainen, Fabian Meumertzheim, Gowroji Sunil, Juh-Roch, Keith Smiley, Krzysztof Naglik, Niyas Sait, Noa Resare, Oliver Eikemeier, Peter Mounce, Philipp Schrader, Ryan Beasley, Thi Doãn, Xùdōng Yáng, Yannic, Zhongpeng Lin, amberdixon, hvadehra, kshyanashree, oquenchil.

[Kshyanashree Mohapatra]

Bazel 5.4.0rc2 is now available for those that want to try it out.

You can download it from: https://releases.bazel.build/5.4.0/rc2/index.html

Please report regressions to https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/issues as soon as possible.

The release notes for version 5.4.0 are:

 

# Release 5.4.0rc2 (2022-12-13)

Baseline: 8d66a4171baddcbe1569972f019e54130111202c

Cherry picks:

 

   + 676a0c8dea0e7782e47a386396e386a51566087f:
     Update Bazel to depend on bazelbuild/platforms 0.0.5.

   + 0ea070be02e21c2418e967e3398251c3abba73e8:
     Backport recent package metadata and license check capabilities from Bazel 6.x. (#16892)

   + b51396a52efd8ff90063ac79e5a69b950cefd914:
     Add 'toolchain' parameter to actions.{run,run_shell} (#16964)