tibtiq / copy_file_to_another_repo_action

This GitHub Action copies a file from the current repository to a location in another repository. Files are pushed with --force.

Changes from original action

This github action differs from the original action in the last step. When pushing the commit it is done with --force. This was to fix an error I was having when running the action when the destination branch existed and had changes.

The error I encountered

error: failed to push some refs to REPO
hint: Updates were rejected because the remote contains work that you do not
hint: have locally. This is usually caused by another repository pushing to
hint: the same ref. If you want to integrate the remote changes, use
hint: 'git pull' before pushing again.
hint: See the 'Note about fast-forwards' in 'git push --help' for details.

copy_file_to_another_repo_action

This GitHub Action copies a file from the current repository to a location in another repository

Example Workflow

name: Push File

on: push

jobs:
  copy-file:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - name: Checkout
      uses: actions/checkout@v2

    - name: Pushes test file
      uses: dmnemec/copy_file_to_another_repo_action@main
      env:
        API_TOKEN_GITHUB: ${{ secrets.API_TOKEN_GITHUB }}
      with:
        source_file: |
          'test2.md'
          'test1.md'
          '/copy_folder'
          '/copy_files_in_folder/'
        destination_repo: 'dmnemec/release-test'
        user_email: '[email protected]'
        user_name: 'dmnemec'
        commit_message: 'A custom message for the commit'

Variables

This section is probably out of date, its best to reference the action.yml file directly.

The API_TOKEN_GITHUB needs to be set in the Secrets section of your repository options. You can retrieve the API_TOKEN_GITHUB here (set the repo permissions).

• source_files: The file or directory to be moved. Uses the same syntax as the rsync command. Incude the path for any files not in the repositories root directory. Possible to specify multiple sources by separating them by spaces.
• destination_repo: The repository to place the file or directory in.
• user_email: The GitHub user email associated with the API token secret.
• user_name: The GitHub username associated with the API token secret.
• destination_branch: [optional] The branch of the source repo to update, if not "main" branch is used.
• destination_branch_create: [optional] A branch to be created with this commit, defaults to commiting in destination_branch
• commit_title: [optional] A custom commit title for the commit. Defaults to Update from ${GITHUB_REPOSITORY}
• commit_description: [optional] A custom commit description for the commit. Defaults to Update from https://github.com/${GITHUB_REPOSITORY}/commit/${GITHUB_SHA}
• use_rsync: [optional] Uses rsync -avh instead of cp -R to perform the base operation. Currently works as an experimental feature (due to lack of testing) but can speed up updates to large collections of files with many small changes by only syncing the changes and not copying the entire contents again. Please understand your use case before using this, and provide feedback as issues if needed.

Behavior Notes

The action will create any destination paths if they don't exist. It will also overwrite existing files if they already exist in the locations being copied to. It will not delete the entire destination repository.

copy_file_to_another_repo_action's Issues

Allow specifying multiple paths in default cp mode

Copying with rsync mode now supports specifying multiple paths in 0ee5a64. The default cp mode should get something similar.

Fix default mode of sending files with `cp`

          This PR broke using the default mode of using `cp` to send files

Originally posted by @dennisvtang in #17 (comment)

Logic for --force flag is backwards

When the flag isn't enabled it utilizes the --force flag in the git push command.

look into automatic semantic versioning

Some github actions I found in my initial research

• Github Tag with sematnic versioning
• Git Automatic Semantic Versioning
• Git Semantic Version
• Immich uses semantic versioning

Useful notes about how github actions versioning system works

• How GitHub Actions versioning system works
• I believe @Head works the same as @main

Reenable `rename` and `destination_folder` arguments

          This PR also disabled `rename` and `destination_folder`. They were too much of hassle to figure out at the moment and I wasn't using them.

Originally posted by @dennisvtang in #17 (comment)

Allow setting a git commit message

Improve robustness of how multiple paths are determined

Multiple paths are determined by a space between paths, but this will have issues of a path has a space in it.

Look over README and improve it

Specifically wanted to improve section on variables.

Should look into more github actions to see how they setup their README.md.

Example github actions to reference

• python-lint-annotate
• action-shfmt
  Uses whats in action.yml. Would be nice to copy whats in action.yml to README.md
• action-shellcheck

Make use of --push flag in push step an github action argument

Run linter and formatter on entrypoint.sh

update github action used for verification testing

Currently main.yml is setup for original action's repos.

File's parent directory isn't being created when using rsync mode

For example when copying the following path .github/workflows/ci.yml only the file is being sent. Might be a problem with rsync itself based on this post.

rsync will only create the final level of the directory hierarchy on the remote host if it's missing.

Fix issue of pushing when there are already changes at destination branch