GitHub Actions - How to trim a string in a condition? - github-actions

Question

How can I trim a string in a condition in GitHub actions workflow?
In the following example, the comment can contains accidentally spaces and new lines. I want to trim the spaces in github.event.comment.body:
steps:
- name: "Check CLA signed"
if: github.event.comment.body == 'I have read the CLA Document and I hereby sign the CLA'

Answer 1

NOTE: Skip to the end for a better answer.
I believe GitHub Actions expressions are very limited to checking basic things in a workflow, rather than offering programming capabilities.
If you need to go the route of checking different ways of writing a message, your best option is to run a check against the string in a step:
steps:
...
- name: Check if person has accepted and signed CLA
shell: python
run: |
import sys
def check_user_accepted_and_signed(text):
"""Some complex natural language processing will go here"""
comment = '''${{ github.event.comment.body }}'''
if not check_user_accepted_and_signed(comment):
sys.exit(1) # This will abort the job
- name: Not accepted or signed
if: ${{ failure() }}
run: optionally do something if the check fails
- name: Move on if the check passed
run: ...
In the code above, you could also replace the inline Python snippet with a script call from your code base, for a cleaner code:
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout#v3
- name: Check if person has accepted and signed CLA
run: ./scripts/check-accepted-signed-cla.sh '${{ toJSON(github.event.comment.body) }}'
# Single quotes and JSON string prevents bad whitespace interpretation
Simpler is usually better
IMHO though, you'd be better off -- and safer! -- doing simple things. Here's an idea:
Set up your GitHub repository with a default pull request body containing a checkbox, for example:
Write your description.
---
- [ ] I have read the CLA and hereby sign it.
In your workflow, check for that checkbox and fail if it's not checked. Shopify/task-list-checker can be of great help here!

Answer 2

You can find all functions that github actions support here
I think you can use contains function for cover your case