"push event contained invalid branches patterns: *[\u00E1\u00E9\u00ED\u00F3\u00FA]*"

[JJ]

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Discussion Details

I'm trying to trigger an error when branch names include Spanish characters with tilde. This is what I use:

name: Fail when incorrect branch names are used
on:
  push:
    branches:
    - '*[\u00E1\u00E9\u00ED\u00F3\u00FA]*'

However, it does not seem to like that syntax, or the other equivalent like áéí. I've copied that syntax directly from the denomination of the branch once it's pushed to GitHub, maybe there's something wrong?

In general,if I want to include non-ASCII character in a branch pattern, what should I do?

[kalmix]

Instead of filtering at the workflow trigger level, you can let the workflow run and then check the branch name:

name: Fail when incorrect branch names are used
on: push

jobs:
  check-branch-name:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Check for Spanish characters
        run: |
          BRANCH_NAME="${GITHUB_REF#refs/heads/}"
          if echo "$BRANCH_NAME" | grep -qP '[áéíóúÁÉÍÓÚñÑ]'; then
            echo "Error: Branch name contains Spanish characters: $BRANCH_NAME"
            exit 1
          fi

Hope it helps!

[JJ]

This would fire every time a push is made, and wouldn't fail as fast. Thanks for the answer anyway.

[vedangdhuri]

Workaround idea:
You can let all branches trigger, then validate the branch name inside a job step. Example:

name: Fail when incorrect branch names are used

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - '**'  # allow all branches for now

jobs:
  check-branch:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Validate branch name
        run: |
          branch_name="${GITHUB_REF##*/}"
          echo "Branch name: $branch_name"
          if echo "$branch_name" | grep -q '[áéíóú]'; then
            echo " Invalid branch name: contains accented characters"
            exit 1
          else
            echo " Branch name is fine"
          fi

• This approach:
• Triggers on every branch.
• Extracts the branch name.
• Uses grep (or you could use a small Node/Python script) to check for disallowed characters.
• Fails the workflow cleanly if it finds any.

[JJ]

Thanks for the answer, but the OP was specifically about branch syntax. I would have used Perl, BTW.

[JJ]

There is apparently no way to insert Unicode characters into character classes in branch/tag patterns. However, you can use them directly.

name: Fail when incorrect branch names are used
on:
  push:
    branches:
    - '*á*'
    - '*é*'
 # And so on...

It's up to to you decide if that's cleaner than using character classes in regular expression within the action itself, which would be triggered for every branch, as the answers above.