ADF: Evaluate string within expression

Question

In Azure Data Factory expression language how do you define a string to be evaluated?

I.e. if you had a Pipeline Parameter param1 defined as 'add(1,1)' and then you wanted to inject that parameter into an expression (i.e. @pipeline().parameters.param1) and evaluate it so that it returns 2 instead of 'add(1,1)' as a string.

The use case I'm trying to solve for is storing some ADF expression language in an Azure SQL Db table which then gets looked up and injected into an ADF activity for evaluation.

Answer 1

Hi @Miles Cole ,

Apologies for the delay in response. I have double checked with product team and confirmed that this isn't a supported scenario. When we look up the SQL table and get the expressions from it as lookup output and pass it to subsequent activities using @activity(<lookupActivityName>).output, then the output will be resolved to plain text so the expression would be just treated as a string.

If you have feedback for a specific feature request, I would recommend you to please submit your idea in ADF user voice forum: https://feedback.azure.com/forums/270578-data-factory. All the feedback shared in this forum are actively monitored and reviewed by ADF engineering teams. Also please do share the feedback link here once it is posted so that others with similar idea can upvote and comment on your feedback.

Hope this info helps. Do let us know if you have further query.

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Answer 2

Thanks. I posted the idea to:
https://feedback.azure.com/forums/270578-data-factory/suggestions/43699422-adf-evaluate-function