[BUG] Bad JSON escape sequence

[TimatGDC]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Does this issue exist in the latest version?

• I'm using the latest release

Describe the bug?

I was trying to run the workflow using your matrix example:

name: 🕵️ Detect Credentials on PR

on:
  pull_request:

jobs:
  changed-files:
    name: Get changed files
    runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
    outputs:
      matrix: ${{ steps.changed-files.outputs.all_changed_files }}
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
      - name: Get changed files
        id: changed-files
        uses: tj-actions/changed-files@v45
        with:
          matrix: true
          since_last_remote_commit: true
      - name: List all changed files
        run: echo '${{ steps.changed-files.outputs.all_changed_files }}'

  matrix-job:
    name: Run Matrix Job
    runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
    needs: [changed-files]
    strategy:
      matrix: 
        files: ${{ fromJSON(needs.changed-files.outputs.matrix) }}
      max-parallel: 4
      fail-fast: false
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Test
        run: |
          echo ${{ matrix.files }}

The goal is to list only the changed file in this PR.

My team uses Next.js, and as a convention, it generate folder with parenthesis. See here. But, when i test it, i ran into an issue:
Bad JSON escape sequence

To Reproduce

1. Create a folder with parenthesis, for example (auth)
2. Create a file inside that folder, write on it and push it to activate the workflow
3. There will be a Bad JSON escape sequence error due to the escaped parenthesis in the path of the folder

What OS are you seeing the problem on?

ubuntu-24.04

Expected behavior?

In the list of changed files:

[".github/workflows/\(folder\)/testfile.txt",".github/workflows/other-test-file.txt",".github/workflows/plateform-auto-detect-credential-pr.yml"]

.github/workflows/\(folder\)/testfile.txt" should be .github/workflows/(folder)/testfile.txt"

Relevant log output

# Log for "List All Changed Files"

[".github/workflows/\(folder\)/testfile.txt",".github/workflows/other-test-file.txt",".github/workflows/plateform-auto-detect-credential-pr.yml"]

# Error For Matrix Job

Error when evaluating 'strategy' for job 'matrix-job'. .github/workflows/plateform-auto-detect-credential-pr.yml (Line: 31, Col: 16): Error parsing fromJson,.github/workflows/plateform-auto-detect-credential-pr.yml (Line: 31, Col: 16): Bad JSON escape sequence: \(. Path '', line 1, position 22.,.github/workflows/plateform-auto-detect-credential-pr.yml (Line: 31, Col: 16): Unexpected value ''

Has all relevant logs been included?

• I've included all relevant logs

Anything else?

No response

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[tj-actions-bot]

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[jackton1]

Hi @TimatGDC, if you use parenthesis () in the folder name, you would need to set safe_output to false to prevent unsafe shell characters from being escaped.

[TimatGDC]

Oh you're right, did not see that one. I was searching for "escaping" in the doc, and not "sanitize", my bad 😅 . Thanks for the help