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Unexpected token 'var'

See original GitHub issue

I am trying to comment on a PR via a workflow and keep getting this exception:

SyntaxError: Unexpected token 'var'
    at new AsyncFunction (<anonymous>)
    at callAsyncFunction (/home/runner/work/_actions/actions/github-script/v5/dist/index.js:4942:56)
    at main (/home/runner/work/_actions/actions/github-script/v5/dist/index.js:4997:26)
    at Module.272 (/home/runner/work/_actions/actions/github-script/v5/dist/index.js:4981:1)
Error: Unhandled error: SyntaxError: Unexpected token 'var'
    at __webpack_require__ (/home/runner/work/_actions/actions/github-script/v5/dist/index.js:24:31)
    at startup (/home/runner/work/_actions/actions/github-script/v5/dist/index.js:43:19)
    at /home/runner/work/_actions/actions/github-script/v5/dist/index.js:49:18
    at Object.<anonymous> (/home/runner/work/_actions/actions/github-script/v5/dist/index.js:52:10)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:959:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:995:10)

The code is really simple

      - name: Comment on PR
        uses: actions/github-script@v5
        if: failure()
        with:
          script: |
            github.rest.issues.createComment({
              issue_number: context.issue.number,
              owner: context.repo.owner,
              repo: context.repo.repo,
              body: "foo"
            })

Github support asked me to log a bug report here as well.

Issue Analytics

State:
Created 2 years ago
Reactions:2
Comments:10 (4 by maintainers)

Top GitHub Comments

6reactions

joshmgrosscommented, Jan 7, 2022

Ok, I think the actual problem is with using a multiline output from a previous step’s stdout as the body in createComment.

If you need to pass into multi-line outputs into the script block, you’ll likely need to pass those values in as environment variables. Otherwise, newlines will be interpreted literally in the script and won’t be valid JavaScript.

Example:

- uses: actions/github-script@v5
  env: 
    MULTILINE_VALUE: ${{ steps.my_step.outputs.value }}
  with:
    script: |
        github.issues.createComment({
          issue_number: context.issue.number,
          owner: context.repo.owner,
          repo: context.repo.repo,
          body: process.env.MULTILINE_VALUE
        })

1reaction

salecharohitcommented, Feb 19, 2022

So I encountered this same issue and was able to resolve it using below as per @joshmgross’s recommendation

  - name: Plan Output
    uses: actions/github-script@v6
    if: github.event_name == 'pull_request'
    env:
      PLAN: "terraform\n${{ steps.plan.outputs.stdout }}"
    with:
      github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      script: |
        const output = `## Terraform Prod Infra Plan
        #### Terraform Initialization \`${{ steps.init.outcome }}\`
        #### Terraform Validation \`${{ steps.validate.outcome }}\`
        #### Terraform Plan \`${{ steps.plan.outcome }}\`
        
        <details><summary>Show Plan</summary>
        ${process.env.PLAN}
        </details>

        *Pusher: @${{ github.actor }}, Action: \`${{ github.event_name }}\`*`;

        github.rest.issues.createComment ({
          issue_number: context.issue.number,
          owner: context.repo.owner,
          repo: context.repo.repo,
          body: output
        })