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In azure devops, inside the classic build, I can generally do $(myVar) to get the value of a variable in certain places. I am not sure if that particular usage has a name.

Is there a way to pass an expression for the same use cases. I mean instead of $(myVar) can I do something like $(coalesce(myVar, otherVar))? I have tried wrapping it in different brackets, doesn't seem to work.

I have checked the docs here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/process/expressions?view=azure-devops

It doesn't show how to use in the classic pipelines, only yaml.

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Is there a way to pass an expression for the same use cases. I mean instead of $(myVar) can I do something like $(coalesce(myVar, otherVar))?

Agree with Daniel, the common use of Expressions is to define conditions for a step, job, or stage or define variables. The expressions work well in Yaml pipelines while it's not supported in Classic pipelines if you want to define variables using $(coalesce(myVar, otherVar)) instead of $(myVar).

The $(coalesce(...))is one of the built-in functions. The only working scope of those functions in classic pipelines is conditions for Job/Task, see:

Job:

enter image description here

Task:

enter image description here

But it seems you're trying to use built-in functions when defining variables, for now that's not supported in classic pipelines. Those can only be used to define/control the conditions for job/task in classic pipelines.

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Yeah this makes sens. I too was using custom conditions as a work around. it just adds more tasks. Which is why I was trying use an inline expression.
Didn't realize you could use custom condition in tasks too. That really simplified the process, so I am marking this as the answer. I'll look more into YAML in future
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Expressions as outlined in the documentation you linked only apply to YAML. You won't be able to do what you want to do unless you use YAML.

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Odd. I have used it in certain places in the classic definitions as well.
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While using expressions in classic pipelines is not supported (except in the control section of the task), I've had success defining a release variable with the expression, and using that release variable instead.

In my case I wanted to do releases based on git tags, and extract the version number from the tag.

Variable definition (with the expression I want to use):

enter image description here

Using the variable in the task:

enter image description here

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