Env var doesn't work at start of string, but does in the middle

[ambis]

• Task version: 3.9.2
• Operating System: macOS 12.1

When a global vars value starts with a dollar/variable, task fails. I have tried escaping it with $$ and \$ but no help.

Example Taskfile showing the issue (version that works)

version: '3'
vars:
  FOO: "does work ${FOO}"
tasks:
  default:
    cmds:
      - echo {{.FOO}}

When you run the above taskfile:

FOO=yes task -t Taskfile.works.yml
task: [default] echo does work ${FOO}
does work yes

Example Taskfile showing the issue (version that does NOT work)

version: '3'
vars:
  FOO: "${FOO} <- does not work"
tasks:
  default:
    cmds:
      - echo {{.FOO}}

When you run the above taskfile:

FOO=nowork task -t Taskfile.nowork.yml
open /tmp/-: no such file or directory
task: Command "{FOO} <- does not work" failed: exit status 1
exit 1

My usecase which fails:

TAG: "${CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE}:latest"

[ambis]

My current workaround:

vars:
  CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE:
    sh: echo "${CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE}"
  TAG: "{{.CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE}}:latest"

[andreynering]

Hi @ambis, thanks for reporting.

That's because of an old and long deprecated and undocumented feature: prefixing a variable with $ would make it being evaluated and the content assigned to the variable. This was replaced with sh:.

I just created an issue to remember to remove this: #644.