Copies .desktop file into bundle, but complains that it's not available

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When I try to build Perspec, I get following error:

-- Deploying desktop files -- 
Deploying desktop file ./.desktop 

-- Copying files into AppDir -- 
Copying file ./.desktop to ./AppDir/usr/share/applications/.desktop 
Copying file /home/runner/work/Perspec/Perspec/images/icon_padded_white_512.png to ./AppDir/usr/share/icons/hicolor/512x512/apps/icon_padded_white_512.png 

-- Deploying files into AppDir root directory -- 
WARNING: Could not find desktop file in AppDir, cannot create links for AppRun, desktop file and icon in AppDir root 

-- Running output plugin: appimage -- 
[appimage/stdout] Found appimagetool: /tmp/.mount_linuxdFNNx7y/plugins/linuxdeploy-plugin-appimage/usr/bin/appimagetool
[appimage/stderr] Running command: /tmp/.mount_linuxdFNNx7y/plugins/linuxdeploy-plugin-appimage/usr/bin/appimagetool "./AppDir" "-g"
[appimage/stderr] 
[appimage/stdout] 
[appimage/stdout] WARNING: appstreamcli command is missing, please install it if you want to use AppStream metadata
[appimage/stderr] appimagetool, continuous build (commit b719a7f), build <local dev build> built on 2022-09-29 13:55:16 UTC
[appimage/stderr] NOTE: Using the output of 'git rev-parse --short HEAD' as the version:
[appimage/stderr]       620cfe1
[appimage/stderr]       Please set the $VERSION environment variable if this is not intended
[appimage/stderr] Desktop file not found, aborting
ERROR: Failed to run plugin: appimage (exit code: 1) 
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

This seems very weird: First it copies the file, but then it complains that the file could not be found. Also, this worked less than a year ago when I built Perspec the last time. So what is going on?

You can find the full log here:
https://github.com/feramhq/Perspec/actions/runs/4914511476/jobs/8775887662#step:8:162

[TheAssassin]

That filename is invalid. Why does your desktop file not have an actual filename? Just call it whatever.desktop and it should work.

Looks like you found an edge case. I'm not sure the XDG desktop entry spec covers this, but it's certainly expected by every participant that your filename does not just consist of the .desktop suffix. We may want to add an assertion for this.