How to write a variable/parameter to stdout?

Question

I'm trying to debug my first Bicep template.

How can I just write a variable or parameter value to standard output?

Something like:

var hello = 'hello world!'
write-host(hello)

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 12 '21 at 12:26

7

The best is to use module outputs which you can read from Portal. Module deployments are separate deployments visible in the "Deployments" section of resource group / subscription / etc. Even if the top-level deployment will fail, outputs from modules inside that were successful can be read, alongside parameters they took.

Remember, that bicep is a declarative language, not imperative, so the file is not being processed sequentially.

answered Jun 12 '21 at 12:26

Miq

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Thanks, I will give that a shot as a work-around - though I won't mark it as accepted, as it's not really what I was looking for... while I'm enjoying most things about Bicep so far, this strikes me as quite a severe limitation: enabling users to see the evaluated result of an expression at runtime (easily and without jumping through hoops) should be a thing. – Nathan Jun 14 '21 at 08:13
place an issue on the bicep github. as for the answer - it's simple - you cannot do that now. I've provided you a best workaround. – Miq Jun 14 '21 at 08:40
I agree with Nathan. – lcj Aug 10 '22 at 10:06
1

I put in a feature request https://github.com/Azure/bicep/issues/7924 – lcj Aug 10 '22 at 10:23

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 25 '22 at 14:43

I created some simple hello world type templates early on in Bicep's history for this type of question https://github.com/Azure/bicep/tree/main/src/Bicep.Core.Samples/Files/user_submitted/000/01-hello-world .

The've been moved around and are harder to find, but still helpful.

How to write a variable/parameter to stdout?

2 Answers2

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