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Ubuntu – Pass a collection of environment variables to a yml step template in Azure DevOps

I need to pass a collection of environment variables to a yml template so that those variables can be used for one of its task.

I developed this sample yml template named my-new-template.yml:

parameters:
- name: envTests
  type: object
  default: []

steps:

- powershell: |
     Write-Host "$env:variable1"
  displayName: 'Display environment'
  env:
    ${{ parameters.envTests }}

where practically I pass the collection as an object input parameter named envTests and then this object is passed as it is to the env group of my powershell task.

The solution was taken from this SO thread Set environment variables into azure devops pipelines step from template.

In my main pipeline I call that template this way:

- job: Job1
    pool:
      vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'

    steps:
    - checkout: none

    - template: my-new-template.yml
      parameters:
        envTests:
          - name: variabile1
            value: valuevariabile1
          - name: variabile2
            value: valueVariabile2

    - template: my-new-template.yml

I make two calls just to see that build is not broken if no environment variables are provided. It seems good to me but I got this exception

my-new-template.yml (Line: 12, Col: 5): A sequence was not expected

Could someone please tell me what I’m doing wrong? Thanks a lot

Tags:

2

Answers


  1. 0

    In the main YAML you can change to like as below to fix the issue.

    - job: Job1
    pool:
      vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'

    steps:
    - checkout: none

    - template: my-new-template.yml
      parameters:
        envTests:
          variabile1: valuevariabile1
          variabile2: valueVariabile2

    EDIT:

    If you want conditionally execute the powershell task based on the length of parameter ‘envTests‘ in the template YAML, you can add the conditional like as below in the template YAML.

    # my-new-template.yml

parameters:
- name: envTests
  type: object
  default: []

steps:
- ${{ if not(eq(length(parameters.envTests), 0)) }}:
  - powershell: |
      Write-Host "variable1 = $env:variable1"
      Write-Host "variable2 = $env:variable2"
    displayName: 'Display environment'
    env:
      ${{ parameters.envTests }}

    See below example:

    # azure-pipelines.yml

stages:
- stage: A
  jobs:
  - job: A1
    steps:
    - checkout: none
    - template: my-new-template.yml
      parameters:
        envTests:
          variable1: valuevariabile1
          variable2: valueVariabile2
  
  - job: A2
    steps:
    - checkout: none
    - template: my-new-template.yml
    • In job A1, the powershell task is executed as the values are provided to the parameter ‘envTests‘.
    • In job A2, the powershell task is not executed as no values are provided to the parameter ‘envTests‘.

    enter image description here

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  2. 0

    This is a slight variation of Bright Ran’s answer.

    This might not be needed for this particular scenario, but in case you need to pass environment variables to a task that has some default variables, you can do something like this:

    my-new-template.yml

    parameters:
- name: envTests
  type: object
  default: []

steps:
- powershell: |
     Write-Host "defaultVariable1: $env:defaultVariable1"
     Write-Host "defaultVariable2: $env:defaultVariable2"
     Write-Host "variable1: $env:variable1"
     Write-Host "variable2: $env:variable2"
  displayName: 'Display environment'
  env:
    ################### default variables
    defaultVariable1: defaultValue1
    defaultVariable2: defaultValue2
    ################### other variables
    ${{ each pair in parameters.envTests }}:
      ${{ pair.key }}: ${{ pair.value }}

    azure-pipeline.yml

    trigger: none

jobs:
  - job: Job1
    displayName: 'Display environment variables'
    pool:
      vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'
    steps:
    - checkout: none
    - template: templates/my-new-template.yml
      parameters:
        envTests:
          variable1: value1
          variable2: value2
    - template: templates/my-new-template.yml

    Running the pipeline:

    Pipeline logs

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