Breaking changes in minor or patch versions of clang-format

[jidicula]

I'm not sure how often this scenario happens:

It's possible that a formatting check workflow using this action and a pinned version of clang-format could break in a subsequent run if the underlying clang-format Ubuntu package has introduced a breaking minor or patch version change.

I want to gather some data and opinions on this so I can understand this problem better.

See also #168

👇 Vote below and leave a comment with more details if you have more to share!

[ptsouchlos]

clang-format 18.1.3 -> 18.1.5+ resulted in breaking changes. This is a bit of a headache because it causes out CI checks to fail when it is really a false positive.

[ptsouchlos]

Relevant bug in the llvm project llvm/llvm-project#93034

[ptsouchlos]

Also changes between 18.1.7 and 18.1.8

[MB-Conti]

Hi, thanks for the poll.
I ran into this issue today with clang-format version 18.

A month ago, the workflow ran fine — today it failed. The root cause was a change in the Ubuntu version used in the Docker image (Commit 2c659fe), from Noble to Questing.

The Noble-based image installs clang-format-18 as version 18.1.3, whereas the Questing-based image installs 18.1.8 (clang-format packages.)

I’m adding this comment as a reference in case it’s helpful to others running into similar version drift issues.