Usability improvement for input of generic workflow

[laurentsimon]

The current input needs:

set -euo pipefail
DIGEST=$(sha256sum binary-linux-amd64)
DIGEST="${DIGEST//'%'/'%25'}"
DIGEST="${DIGEST//$'\n'/'%0A'}"
DIGEST="${DIGEST//$'\r'/'%0D'}"
echo "::set-output name=digest::$DIGEST"

I wonder whether it'd be easier for users if the input was base64-encoded:

set -euo pipefail
DIGEST=$(sha256sum binary-linux-amd64)
DIGESTS=$(echo -n "$DIGEST | base64 -w 0)
echo "::set-output name=digest::$DIGESTS"

set -euo pipefail
sha256sum binary-linux-amd64 > DIGESTS
sha256sum binary-linux-amd64-2 >> DIGESTS
sha256sum binary-linux-amd64-3 >> DIGESTS
DIGESTS=$(cat DIGESTS | base64 -w 0)
echo "::set-output name=digest::$DIGESTS"

I think it's effectively the same, because the string replacements have to be done just once even for multiple digests. If that's the case, we should at least document it. The only reason I'm proposing base64 is that the string substitution may be a little off-putting for some users.

Thoughts?

[ianlewis]

Yeah, it's not very user friendly to require users to do it. base64 may be easier for users rather than do the string substitution.

We should probably have friendly error messages if the data isn't properly base64 encoded as well.

[laurentsimon]

Yeah, it's not very user friendly to require users to do it. base64 may be easier for users rather than do the string substitution.

@asraa @MarkLodato @joshuagl wdut?

We should probably have friendly error messages if the data isn't properly base64 encoded as well.

+1 for this

[MarkLodato]

Good idea. That's much better.

I think you can combine it all into a single command?

echo "::set-output name=digest::$(sha256sum file1 file2 file3 | base64 -w 0)"

Or if you prefer a variable:

FILES=( file1 file2 file3 )
echo "::set-output name=digest::$(sha256sum "${FILES[@]}" | base64 -w 0)"

[ianlewis]

Another option would be to have them output it with nul terminators instead of newlines (e.g. sha256sum -z) but I'm not sure that's easier to understand than using base64