azure-data-factory - ADF: Dynamic Content in parameters

Question

I am trying to pass text with dynamic content as a parameter into a pipeline (execute pipeline activity).

As a super simple example, I want the input to my pipeline to be a timestamp, utcnow(). Here are my results:

I've noticed:
If I put @utcnow() in a set variable activity and set the execute pipeline parameter to that variable it works.

If I put @utcnow() (or @{utcnow()}) in the main parameter and set the execute pipeline parameter to that parameter it does not work. I get that string "utcnow()" as the result.

Is there anything that I am missing here? I definitely feel like I've done this successfully before.

Answer 1

If I understand your question correctly, the issue is caused by the main parameter(pipeline parameter) doesn't support expression or functions.

For example, we could pass the value from variable to pipeline active parameter, and it works well, because variable support expression/functions:

When the main pipeline only contains an Execute Pipeline active, we pass the value from main parameter(pipeline parameter) to the Execute Pipeline parameter:

When we debug the pipeline, we need pass the value of main parameter:

The value of pipeline parameter only support the String value, then function utcNow() or @{utcnow() will considered as the String.