Consider splitting action.yml Bash script into its own file

[jcbhmr]

If you're dead-set on maintaining Windows compatibility, I think this would require some testing to make sure that #!/bin/bash works to then ./my-script.sh on a Windows system. I think it does, but I would still test it to be sure.

But realistically, most people are going to use runs-on: ubuntu-latest for just this specific action.

# This is probably what most people are going to use this action for...
on: push
jobs:
  wiki:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: spenserblack/actions-wiki@vN
      # And that's literally it.

But hey, there might be a compelling reason that I'm missing!

[spenserblack]

I'd say that I am dead-set on maintaining Windows compatibility 😆
I can't anticipate all use cases, but I think it might get a bit too opinionated to say that this action must be used with a certain OS.

However, extracting the script(s) into their own files would certainly make this repo's language stats more accurate. If necessary, instead of calling ./script.sh, we can always call bash script.sh if necessary, though I'd be surprised if the Bash for Windows executable wasn't already associated with the .sh extension.

[jcbhmr]

a bit too opinionated to say that this action must be used with a certain OS.

You might be right! But, I think there is compelling evidence that Linux (specifically "ubuntu-latest" in this case) is the "defacto standard" for GitHub Actions jobs

https://github.com/search?q=runs-on%3A+ubuntu-latest&type=code

vs

https://github.com/search?q=runs-on%3A+windows-latest&type=code

[jcbhmr]

If necessary, instead of calling ./script.sh, we can always call bash script.sh if necessary, though I'd be surprised if the Bash for Windows executable wasn't already associated with the .sh extension.

This is kinda what I was thinking, but I'm not 100% certain... Why not certain? Because I don't really use runs-on: windows-latest lmao 😁

soooo uh yeah; I guess being dead-set on Windows compat is fine. Does Docker work on Windows? I know you've mentioned in passing that it doesn't... but is there a GitHub doc or something that we can point at in the readme as to why (or the CONTRIBUTING.md if that ever gets made) to document for others who may happen along and wonder why? it's not done in Docker if we use linux and want to be compat with Windows runners?

[spenserblack]

Sorry, missed these comments.

actions/runner#904 and actions/runner-images#1143

Also, my personal experience using this: https://github.com/spenserblack/actions-set-output

[jcbhmr]

if you want to follow in the footsteps of the official https://github.com/actions , you could use a Node.js-based action like they do for most (all?) of their stuff

ex: https://github.com/actions/checkout uses node16

Then you could use something like https://github.com/google/zx to do things like

import "zx/globals"
import {} from "@actions/core" // or whatever

const ref = await $`git subtree split -P ${blah}`
// ... all the other magic in JS so you are independent of Windows/Bash/Ubuntu and you just tap
// into git commands when needed

Or you could use something like a JS wrapper for the git commands so you don't even have to use the git ... CLI, you just call a func

• https://www.npmjs.com/package/simple-git (probably what you'd want)
• https://github.com/nodegit/nodegit (native)

and btw the official checkout action uses a git js wrapper to do its thing https://github.com/actions/checkout/blob/main/src/git-command-manager.ts so this is treaded ground and might be worth looking into

[spenserblack]

Yeah, if the logic gets too complex (or we have a compelling reason for using a library from the JS ecosystem), I'll definitely convert this to a Node.js action. That's what I did for https://github.com/spenserblack/actions-tag-to-release

Not sure if I'd use JS or TS, though 🤔

[jcbhmr]

to be resolved in #35 so closing this discussion