Azure Cli update variable with JSON object in powershell script

Question

I am trying to update Azure pipeline group variable from within a PowerShell script using the az cli.

I have the command updating the variable but its modifying the json and removing all the quotes (")

so instead of updating variable from {"a": "a"} to {"a": "b"}

it updates it to {a: b}

I am running the following command

$json = ConvertTo-Json $a -Compress
Write-Host $json
az pipelines variable-group variable update --group-id 236 --name MyJson --detect true --secret false --value $json

The outut of the write-host is

{"a": "b"}

Output of the the az pipelines variable-group variable update is

{
 "MyJson": {
   "isSecret": null,
   "value": "{a:b}"
  }
}

What am I doing wrong and how can I get it to update without modifying the JSON?

Charles Xu · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-19 01:47:49Z

1

All the variables are stored as strings and are mutable, and it already means string when it's in the double-quotes. So it removes all the quotes inside. If you want to make the quotes also stores as the value, then you need to transfer them like this:

{\"a\":\"b\"}

Or just use single quotation marks:

'{"a":"b"}'

Finally, it will look like this:

It's not necessary to store the double-quotes as the value. So I don't recommend you do this without any special reason.

answered Feb 19, 2021 at 1:47

Charles Xu

31.8k2 gold badges26 silver badges42 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

Phil Over a year ago

so interesting when you do it with a var put the var in ' ' doesn't work. So I have had to do a replace and replace all the " with \" then pass it to the command

Phil · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-23 08:28:38Z

1

So while @charles works when passing the data straight to the command like that, we are using variables.

While I understand what's going on here, still think the az command could handle this better.

So to get this to work I had to do a replace on the string and replace all " with \"

Annoying that this has to be done but it works, so my final commands look like this:

$new_json = $json.replace("`"", "\`"")
az pipelines variable-group variable update --group-id $(VarGroupId) --name var_name --detect true --secret false --value $new_json

answered Feb 23, 2021 at 8:28

Phil

8252 gold badges10 silver badges26 bronze badges

2 Comments

Charles Xu Over a year ago

Why not accept my answer instead of adding another answer when you just copy the solution?!

TeamDman Over a year ago

The json string must contain backslashes, rather than just escaping the json to fit in the string. The answers are different.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Azure Cli update variable with JSON object in powershell script

2 Answers 2

1 Comment

2 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

1 Comment

2 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related