ADF (Azure Data Factory) Daily Routine Expressions / ADF Expressions Cheatsheet

All keywords, function names etc. are case-sensitive

Single quote to be used for string

All expressions to begin with @

No direct use of operators; all manipulations through functions only

Datetime format is SQL Server’s DATETIMEOFFSET format

Accessing Parameter –

@pipeline().parameters.<parametername>

Accessing Variable e.g. –

@variables('TempCounter')

Lookup Activity First Row –

@activity('Lookup Activity Name').output.firstRow.ColumnName

Lookup Activity Multi Row Output but reading from one particular row

@string(activity('Lookup Activity').output.value[0].ColumnName)

Lookup Activity’s result in an Array –

@activity('Lookup Activity').output.value

Until Activity’s Terminating Expression –

@greater(variables('Counter'),variables('TargetCounter'))

Filtering an Array under Filter Activity –

@equals(int(item().ColumnName), int(variables('Counter')))

If Activity Expression –

@greater(length(activity('Previous Activity Name Returning Array').output.value),0)

For Each Activity, accessing current item –

@item().ColumnName

System variables accessed as e.g. –

@pipeline().RunId
@pipeline().Pipeline
@pipeline().DataFactory

Current Date Time –

@utcnow()

Variable value as HTML –

["<b>Table - Rows Read - Rows Copied - Duration (in seconds) </b>"]

Common Functions –

@formatDateTime(utcnow(), 'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss')

@concat('a', 'b', 'c')

@coalesce('First Value', 'Second Value')

@empty('Variable or Parameter to be checked for null')

Type Casting –

@int('string to integer conversion')

@json('string to JSON conversion')

@string('Number to string conversion')

Display Array Variable – converting an array to string produces each item separated by linefeed

@string(variables('Array Type Variable'))