weird shell behavior in tasks, wildcard not read correctly?

[sg-qwt]

Again, following babashka book and playing with tasks, noticed a very weird thing:

> tree .github
.github
└── workflows
    └── main.yaml

{:tasks
 {clean (shell "rm -rf .github/workflows/*")
  clean2 (shell "rm -rf .github/workflows")}}

1. manually running rm -rf .github/workflows/* has no issue delete main.yaml
2. running bb clean does not delete main.yaml, empty output, no error
3. running bb clean2 does delete workflows folder as whole as expected

Maybe shell has issue with wildcard?
Related babashka/process#103. An echo maybe helpful to figure out what's going on this case.

related versions

babashka v1.3.176

Clojure CLI version 1.11.1.1257

java --version
openjdk 11.0.18 2023-01-17
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 11.0.18+0-adhoc..source)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 11.0.18+0-adhoc..source, mixed mode)

platform
Linux 6.1.20 NixOS x86_64 GNU/Linux

[borkdude]

@sg-qwt I converted your issue to a Q/A discussion over here, I think the Discussions part is more suited for this.

shell shells out to an external program, but it does not actually start a bash/zsh or whatever shell. As such it doesn't understand bash syntax.

You can accomplish the above with:

{:tasks
  {:requires ([babashka.fs :as fs])
   clean (fs/delete-tree ".github/workflows")

If you want wildcards etc to work, you have to invoke bash manually like this:

(shell "bash -c 'rm -rf .github/workflows/*'")

[sg-qwt]

Thanks @borkdude.
Does it make sense to use what ever $SHELL is setup as a default and fall back to the external shell if $SHELL not setup this case? Most linux system should have some kind of default $SHELL I believe.

Otherwise, this shell behavior is worth documented on the website maybe. Again, thanks for the help!

[borkdude]

Bb aims to be a cross-platform scripting tool and I'm afraid SHELL is only defined on *nix systems, not on Windows. Using babashka.fs for file-system operations is preferred as this will work everywhere and not only for those people on *nix systems.
Where / which website should this be clarified? It will be very useful to me to have your feedback on this.

[sg-qwt]

A small notice section under https://book.babashka.org/#_shell would be fine by me.

[borkdude]

Done!