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String array function Join

in some cases, I need to concatenate several references (variables) which have rather long names (or complex object structures).

The standard approach (Concat(...)) makes for a very long lines.

Since multi-line values aren't supported (another area for improvement), the current approach I use is to create an array of each segment, since each member of the array can be its own line.

Ideally I'd like to take that array and just Join(string[], "")... but currently I can't, so I'm forced to concat(var[0], "", var[1], "_", var[2]).

The inclusion of a JOIN function would SIGNIFICANTLY simplify the variable's definition.

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  • LarryD commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    I built on to Ximon Eighteen's suggestion. It's the best terrible solution I've found, so far. I was worried that the beginning and end of my data was at risk, so I added a beginning and ending element to make the search unique.

    "myArray": [
    "***",
    "abc",
    "def",
    "ghi",
    "***"
    ],
    "myString": "[replace(replace(replace(string(variables('myArray')), '\",\"', ''), '[\"***', ''), '***\"]', '')]"

    "exampleOutput1": {
    "type": "String",
    "value": "abcdefghi"

  • victor commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    I strongly agree with this much needed feature. The scenario: I have a string parameters "Project-One-April-26". I want to create a string variable "ProjectOneApril26".

    In JavaScript, all I need to do is run "Project-One-April-26".split('-').join(''). but I can't do that in ARM template because concat() does not allow merging an array of strings into a single string.

    It would be very helpful to have a function that takes an array (or arrays) of strings, and concatenate all the strings into a single string as output. Thank you!

  • Parker Shelton commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    +1. We have a scenario where we need to call listKeys() on an unknown number of storage accounts, then concatenate the results together into a single JSON dictionary. Neither concat() or format() appear to work in this scenario with an unknown number of arguments and there's no for() equivalent to loop and append.

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    lol I can't believe there are a bunch of string methods, but the most common used: join is not there.Let's say I want to provide users with an array parameter, I don't know beforehand how many items it will contain. But I need to make them all into a string seperated by a character (like semicolon or comma).

    AWS already got this: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/intrinsic-function-reference-join.html

  • Hal commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    Constructing a Kusto query from multiple variables (e.g. serverName, database name, maxDurationThreshold, etc.)

    The simple thing to do might be to simply update concat to treat a single array argument as an array whose members are to be joined.

    concat(variables('myArray'))

  • Bryan Wood commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    @joep I agree, there is the 'split' function in the string functions, but there is no inverse function in the array/object functions to 'join'.

    There should be a way to join that is native to the ARM template SDK. while @Ximon does have a decent solution, one would have to include this every time they need it in a function linked, nested or direct.

    Copy and paste is not true code reuse. Its code rewrite.

  • Ximon Eighteen commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    There's still no join function but a recent addition was user-defined functions. With that we can do the following:

    {
    "$schema": "http://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2015-01-01/deploymentTemplate.json",
    "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
    "parameters": {
    "lines": {
    "type": "array",
    "defaultValue": [
    "one\n",
    "two\n",
    "three"
    ]
    }
    },
    "variables": {
    },
    "functions": [
    {
    "namespace": "ximon18",
    "members": {
    "join": {
    "parameters": [
    {
    "name": "lines",
    "type": "array"
    }
    ],
    "output": {
    "type": "string",
    "value": "[replace(replace(replace(string(parameters('lines')), '[\"', ''), '\"]', ''), '\",\"', '')]"
    }
    }
    }
    }
    ],
    "resources": [
    ],
    "outputs": {
    "test": {
    "value": "[ximon18.join(parameters('lines'))]",
    "type": "string"
    }
    }
    }

    Does that help?

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