Setting strategy.matrix.value to expression throws invalid type error

Getting “Invalid type found: array was expected but string was found” at matrix: value: ${{fromJson(needs.setup.outputs.matrix)}}

Any ${{}} expression fails. Only [] is allowed now, with at least one value. But the value cannot be an expression.

`name: Test Matrix

on: workflow_dispatch:

jobs:

setup: runs-on: ubuntu-latest outputs: matrix: ${{ steps.matrix.outputs.value }} steps: - id: matrix run: | echo ‘::set-output name=value::["a", "b", "c"]’ build: needs: [ setup ] runs-on: ubuntu-latest strategy: matrix: value: ${{fromJson(needs.setup.outputs.matrix)}} steps: - run: | echo “${{ matrix.value }}”`

[javierlga]

This was driving me crazy, originally I was using cat and jq together to get the content into a string: cat releases.json | jq 'tostring' and then adding it to the GITHUB_OUTPUT:

echo "matrix=$(cat releases.json | jq 'tostring')" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT

but when I ran the workflow I always got this error:

Unexpected type of value '[{"name":"XXX","ip_address":"XXX"},{"name":"XXX","ip_address":"XXX"}]', expected type: Sequence.

Note: I’ve been using the include property when defining the matrix.

Anyways, for some reason a pair of single quotes were added even removing with sed threw another error message:

Error parsing fromJson,.github/workflows/XXX.yaml (Line: 164, Col: 18): Invalid property identifier character: \. Path '[0]', line 1, position 2.,.github/workflows/XXX.yaml (Line: 164, Col: 18): Unexpected type of value '', expected type: Sequence.

The solution that I found was to use a multiline string, e.g.:

    steps:
      - name: Get JSON content
        id: get-json-content
        run: |
          echo 'JSON_CONTENT<<EOF' >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
          cat releases.json >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
          echo 'EOF' >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
    outputs:
      new_content: ${{ steps.get-json-content.outputs.JSON_CONTENT }} 

Job using matrix:

  matrix_job_test:
    name: Matrix job test
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: test_job
    strategy:
      matrix:
        include: ${{ fromJSON(needs.test_job.outputs.new_content) }}
    steps:
      - run: |
          echo $STACK_NAME
          echo $STACK_IP
        env:
          STACK_NAME: ${{ matrix.name }}
          STACK_IP: ${{ matrix.ip_address }}

In case someone wonder, this is the JSON content structure:

[
  {
  "name": "string",
  "ip_address": "string"
  },
  {
    "name": "string",
    "ip_address": "string"
  }
]

I hope this helps other people, cheers!

[gfrid]

hi,

seems to be a bug and it did fail until I rewrote every line manually with all the correct indentations and spaces
also i found out that if you copy-paste it from somewhere it does not run seems to me that there are hidden chars while copypasting

i ignored the error ‘invalid type found: array was expected but string was found’ and continued it might a case of incorrect indentations and spaces , not sure, if so its a bug for sure.

still error should not appear while editing

my account.txt file is:

1111111 2222222

jobs:
  list-manifests:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - id: set-matrix
        run: echo "::set-output name=matrix::$(cat accounts.txt | jq -R -s -c 'split("\n")[:-1]')"
    outputs:
       matrix: ${{ steps.set-matrix.outputs.matrix }}
  

  check:
    needs: [list-manifests]
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    strategy:
      matrix: 
        manifest: ${{ fromJson(needs.list-manifests.outputs.matrix) }}
    steps:
      - name: test
        run: |
          echo ${{ matrix.manifest }}
        shell: bash