Detecting Changes in a Repo's Sub Folders To Build Their Associated Solutions.

[MattWalker414]

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I currently have a workflow that is working fine with regard to the main application it is to build. However, in this repo there is the following folder structure

C:\actions-runner_work\MyApp\MyApp\SubAppsToBuild

In this directory there may be the following sub-structure

\SubApp1
     \SubApp1
         \MoreSubFolders
     SubApp1.sln

\SubApp2
     \SubApp2
         \MoreSubFolders
     SubApp2.sln

What I would like to be able to do if possible is, after the Main application builds, cycle through these subfolders to detect any changes then build the associated SubApp#.sln file. So any changes, even those that might be in SubApp2\SubApp2\MoreSubFolders or below, would trigger the build of SubApp2.sln.

Here is what I've been able to cobble together from various sources...

- name: Check for Changed SubApps
        id: plugin-changes
        run: |
          # Command to detect changes and output to changes.txt
          git diff --name-only ${{ github.event.before }} ${{ github.sha }} > changes.txt

          $CHANGED_SOLUTIONS = ""

          # Read changes from changes.txt and populate CHANGED_SOLUTIONS
          Get-Content changes.txt | ForEach-Object {
            $line = $_
            if ($line -like "MyApp/SubAppsToBuild/*") {
              $solutionPath = [System.IO.Path]::GetDirectoryName($line)
              if (-not $CHANGED_SOLUTIONS.Contains($solutionPath) -and (Test-Path "$solutionPath/MySolution.sln")) {
                $CHANGED_SOLUTIONS += "$solutionPath;"
              }
            }
          }

          # Set output variable CHANGED_SOLUTIONS
          if ($CHANGED_SOLUTIONS.Length -gt 0) {
            Write-Host "SupApp Changes detected in solutions: $CHANGED_SOLUTIONS"
            echo "CHANGED_SOLUTIONS=$CHANGED_SOLUTIONS" | Out-File -FilePath $Env:GITHUB_ENV -Encoding utf8 -Append
          }
          else {
            Write-Host "No SubApp changes found."
            echo "CHANGED_SOLUTIONS=" | Out-File -FilePath $Env:GITHUB_ENV -Encoding utf8 -Append  # Ensure variable is defined even if empty
          }

      - name: Build Changed SubApps
        if: ${{ env.CHANGED_SOLUTIONS }}
        run: |
          $solutions = $env:CHANGED_SOLUTIONS.Split(';')
          foreach ($solution in $solutions) {
            $solution = $solution.Trim()
            Write-Host "Restoring and building solution: $solution"

            # Use msbuild commands to restore and build the solution
            msbuild "$solution/SubApp#.sln" /t:restore /p:Configuration=Release
            msbuild "$solution/SubApp#.sln" /p:Configuration=Release
          }

Trying to build with this code yields the following around this code... git diff --name-only ${{ github.event.before }} ${{ github.sha }} > changes.txt

This resolves to the following during the build... git diff --name-only dde002c5ecd4c12ef4787a2650082686ebbf8e35 b3e0a8135ff8b3fb6c6e1618cc808cb44c9691e0 > changes.txt

The .txt file is created and is empty as I would expect as there were no changed, but the following error occurred...

fatal: bad object dde002c5ecd4c12ef4787a2650082686ebbf8e35
No PlugIn changes found.
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

I want to detect changes and only build any of the SubApps if changes found in any associated files/folders as they don't change very often so no need to build them all the time or during each build of the Main app.

Hopefully this is possible and I'm headed in the right direction. Any help or guidance would be Greatly Appreciated!