Inline object as a parameter value to a linked template deployment - azure

Question

I'd like to be able to pass an inline object as the value of a parameter to a linked template. The use case would be that I have a template that deploys a service bus (or some other resource) and a template that deploys a web application. I want to build a template that marries the two components. I'd like the web app template to have an object parameter called userProvidedAppSettings that I can union with some defaults and then assign that resulting object as the properties value of a Microsoft.Web/site/config/appsettings resource.
It appears that you can not currently use the reference or listkeys functions in an inline object value for a parameter, see the userProvidedAppSettings in the example below.
Is this possible and I'm not using a proper convention? I haven't seen anything in the documentation about this.
{
"apiVersion": "[parameters('apiVersion')]",
"name": "[variables('serviceBusDeploymentName')]",
"type": "Microsoft.Resources/deployments",
"properties": {
"mode": "Incremental",
"templateLink": {
"uri": "[parameters('templateOneUri')]",
"contentVersion": "1.0.0.0"
},
"parameters": {
"environment": { "value": "[parameters('environment')]" },
"appName": { "value": "[parameters('appName')]" }
}
}
},
{
"apiVersion": "[parameters('apiVersion')]",
"name": "[variables('applicationDeploymentName')]",
"type": "Microsoft.Resources/deployments",
"properties": {
"mode": "Incremental",
"templateLink": {
"uri": "[parameters('templateTwoUri')]",
"contentVersion": "1.0.0.0"
},
"parameters": {
"environment": { "value": "[parameters('environment')]" },
"appName": { "value": "[parameters('appName')]" },
"userProvidedAppSettings" : { "value": { "serviceBusConnectionString": "[reference(variables('serviceBusDeploymentName')).outputs.connectionString.value]" } }
}
}
}
EDIT:
To clarify, this is about the behavior of linked template parameter values. I am specifically asking about this:
"parameters": {
// Allowed:
"param1": { "value": "[parameters('environment')]" },
"param2": { "value": "[reference('otherDeployment').outputs.something.value]" },
"param3": { "value": { "this": "is allowed",
"inline": "is allowed" } },
// NOT Allowed
"param4": { "value": { "this": "is NOT allowed".
"foo": "[reference('otherDeployment').outputs.something.value]" } }
}
reference outputs are allowed as values, inline objects are allowed as values, but inline objects whose values include a reference (or implicit reference from list functions) are NOT allowed. I'm wondering if this is either possible through a different convention or if this should be added to a list of desired features.

Answer 1

For your issue, not sure but you can have a try about links and nested templates. You can get the value of the link template in the main template.
You can define the variable in the link template output and use it in the main template. There is a simple example here. Hope this will help you!

Answer 2

you could use a union() function to build the desired object and pass that as a value to the parameter.
{
"$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2015-01-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
"contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
"parameters": {
"firstObject": {
"type": "object",
"defaultValue": {"one": "a", "two": "b", "three": "c1"}
},
"secondObject": {
"type": "object",
"defaultValue": {"three": "c2", "four": "d", "five": "e"}
}
},
"resources": [],
"outputs": {
"objectOutput": {
"type": "object",
"value": "[union(parameters('firstObject'), parameters('secondObject'))]"
}
}
}