How to pass more than 5000 characters as command to Azure CLI task?

Question

There is an Azure CLI v2 task in one of my Azure DevOps release pipelines. Its Script Type is set as Shell and Script Location is set as Inline Script. The script contains a large az container create command at the moment and it works fine. I need to update this Inline Script with some additional environment variables but when copy/pasting the command in it I get the below error:

This input does not support more than 5,000 characters. The pasted content has been clipped.

What is a workaround for this?

Answer 1

According to this Github issue comments by damccorm regarding same warning. This limits are imposed as soon as there’s a degradation in performance in your Azure DevOps agent while running the task. As a workaround you can add your environment variable file as a txt and import it in your code as mentioned in the comment
myRepo\myPowershellScript.ps1 in the github issue above.

In your scenario as mentioned in comments by @Narthring it would be like below:-

az container create -g siliconrg --name myapp123 --image
mcr.microsoft.com/azuredocs/aci-helloworld:latest --cpu 1 --memory 1
--environment-variables "MY_ENV_VAR=@/path/to/my/file.txt"

I have tried adding environment variable with values longer than 5000 characters but I enclosed those characters in a double quotes and I did not receive any warning stating 5000 characters limit, Refer below:-

My Azure CLI task inline script which I referred from this MS Document

az container create -g siliconrg --name myapp123 --image mcr.microsoft.com/azuredocs/aci-helloworld:latest --cpu 1 --memory 1 --environment-variables "TARGET_ENVIRONMENT=$(TargetEnvironment)" "CONNECTION_STRINGS_MYDATABASE=$(ConnectionStrings.MyDatabase)" "MY_LONG_ENV_VAR=my_value_1:Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam aliquam ornare ultrices. Sed venenatis eu nisl ut bibendum. Etiam non quam sapien. Suspendisse vel quam eu quam pharetra porttitor. Suspendisse faucibus magna sit amet ante dictum, eu pellentesque nulla bibendum. Integer mattis nisi eu mi maximus hendrerit. Sed mollis ipsum ut mauris elementum laoreet. Fusce nec risus in mi hendrerit malesuada. Nulla non tellus vel quam dictum vehicula. Nullam sit amet ipsum id mi tincidunt pretium. Duis consequat pharetra libero eu luctus. Nulla non ligula bibendum, consectetur turpis sed, sagittis nulla. Donec consequat accumsan purus, quis blandit sapien bibendum ut. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia curae; my_value_2:Phasellus facilisis velit nec dui tincidunt varius. Fusce bibendum justo libero, ut ullamcorper nisi rhoncus a. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia curae; my_value_3:Morbi eu sapien sed libero dictum pharetra. Sed auctor diam eu ex faucibus molestie. Praesent at commodo libero. Fusce eu velit nisl. Duis id odio eleifend, pharetra odio vel, dictum lorem. Nunc non tortor elit. Ut id orci risus. Donec eu tristique dolor. Aliquam auctor rutrum mi, vel pharetra ipsum interdum vitae. Ut malesuada lectus eget vestibulum viverra. Sed auctor nulla vel magna consequat, nec sodales nisi lobortis. Sed et malesuada enim. Cras vitae mi euismod, vestibulum metus eu, tincidunt massa. Aliquam feugiat nulla eget urna accumsan, eu lobortis justo pulvinar."

Output:-

Portal:-