Be more precise when expression syntax ${{ }} can be omitted in if statement

[programmer04]

Why:

Unfortunately, you can't always omit ${{ }} in the if statement and it's not documented anywhere. Consider below examples

name: test-expressionon:
push:
branches:
- mainjobs:
test:
runs-on: ubuntu-lateststeps:
- run: echo 'Hello, world!'statement-if:
runs-on: ubuntu-latestif: github.event_name == 'push' && !startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/heads/')steps:
- run: echo 'Summer!'

the above works as expected, but the below that only differs by order of statements in if doesn't work

name: test-expressionon:
push:
branches:
- mainjobs:
test:
runs-on: ubuntu-lateststeps:
- run: echo 'Hello, world!'statement-if:
runs-on: ubuntu-latestif: !startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/heads/') && github.event_name == 'push'steps:
- run: echo 'Summer!'

ends with

This is due to the YAML format see

• https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/26303#discussioncomment-6739171
• https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/26386#discussioncomment-3251729

basically, it can't start with !, because it has meaning in YAML specification.

In my opinion, it's a pain to have it like that and it should be forbidden at all or work as expected even at the cost of breaking a little bit of specification of YAML. It should be reported to the team responsible for GitHub Workflows to take some action.

What's being changed (if available, include any code snippets, screenshots, or gifs):

The description for the if conditional.

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[cmwilson21]

@programmer04 Thanks so much for submitting a PR! I'll get this triaged for review ⚡

[jc-clark]

Thank you @programmer04 for finding this and helping with the fix!

While I was searching around the other articles, I found some text on if conditionals in the "Variables" article as well.

What do you think about updating this line with the same text?

[programmer04]

Thanks for the review and suggestion @jc-clark! For this syntax, it's even a little bit more complicated, because you can also write such expressions as if: !cancelled as e.g.:

• if: '!cancelled'
• if: (!cancelled)

read discussion and the other

[jc-clark]

🤔 I see what you're saying @programmer04. I think it would make sense to document the two examples you listed.

I think the paragraph in the data/reusables/actions/expression-syntax-if.md reusable is starting to get a bit long and difficult to understand. Ideally we can split this paragraph into a couple smaller paragraphs.

There's one problem though. We can't just add line breaks because the reusable also exists in a bulleted list on this line. Adding line breaks will break the formatting in the bulleted list.

It seems to me that we can delete this bullet point in the note since the same information is at the top of the article. Then we'd be able to add some line breaks and more information to the reusable.

What do you think of that?

[cmwilson21]

👋 @programmer04 - just checking in. Is this one ready for another review?

[github-actions]

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[programmer04]

I made suggested adjustments, it's ready for review @jc-clark and @cmwilson21. Btw. it would be easier if GH would always require ${{ }} in if statements 😅

[jc-clark]

Looks great to me. Many thanks for helping keep this updated @programmer04. I'll get this set up to merge.

[github-actions]

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