Variables with blank or empty values not included in variable collection

Legacy Uncategorised
1

It looks like variables that do not have values defined aren’t getting passed into the $OctopusParameters collection, does Octopus ignore variables that have blank or empty values?

2

Hi Shawn,

From my testing just now, it seems to me that the values are included in the $OctopusParameters collection, but they are being trimmed. i.e. any trailing whitespace is removed.

This behavior was implemented to prevent password copy/paste errors.

Does this fit what your are seeing. Is this behavior causing you a specific problem?

Regards,
Michael

3

check to make sure variable value is available

if($OctopusParameters -and $OctopusParameters["$($Parameter.Name)"])
{
    # set the variable value
    $Variable.Value = $OctopusParameters["$($Parameter.Name)"]
}
else
{
    # warning
    Write-Warning "OctopusParameters collection is null or $($Parameter.Name) not found in collection"
}

The above code hits the ELSE statement for variables that are blank or empty, is this logic incorrect?

EDIT - The $Parameter.Name value directly corresponds to a variable defined in the Variables section. IE, if there is a variable named Variable1.Password, the value of $Parameter.Name is Variable1.Password.

4

Duplicate post

5

I believe that’s due to the way PowerShell converts strings to booleans. Empty strings are evaluated as false. If you changed it to:

# check to make sure variable value is available 
    if($OctopusParameters -and $OctopusParameters.ContainsKey($Parameter.Name) )
    { 
        # set the variable value 
        $Variable.Value = $OctopusParameters["$($Parameter.Name)"] 
    } 
    else 
    { 
        # warning 
        Write-Warning "OctopusParameters collection is null or $($Parameter.Name) not found in collection" 
    }

I think you will see the behavior you expect?

6

The ContainsKey method caused all of them to hit the ELSE statement, however, this worked well

if($OctopusParameters -and ($OctopusParameters["$($Parameter.Name)"] -ne $null))
{
    # set the variable value
    $Variable.Value = $OctopusParameters["$($Parameter.Name)"]
}
else
{
    # warning
    Write-Warning "OctopusParameters collection is null or $($Parameter.Name) not found in collection"
}

Shawn

7

I’m glad to hear it’s working for you Shawn. Thanks for the update.

Regards,
Michael

8

Scratch that, your method is the correct solution. I must have done something wrong the first time I tried it. Thanks for pointing out my logic error :slight_smile:

9

Hah. You’re welcome. Thanks for the update.

Happy Deployments!