How to access the contentVersion in output session of ARM Templates? - azure

Question

I am building an Web Application and deploy it into Azure using ARM Templates. I am creating and deploying them without any problem. I am trying to access contentVersion in output session. But, I am receiving an message
Unable to evaluate template outputs
I tried it in following ways:
"outputs": {
"Contentoutput": {
"type": "string",
"value": "[reference('contentVersion')]" //First case
"value": "[reference('contentVersion').value]" //Second case
"value": "['contentVersion']" //Third case
"value": "[contains('contentVersion','contentVersion')]" //Fourth case
}
}
How to access the contentVersion in output session?

Answer 1

A better way of outputting the content version would be to use the deployment function (see documentation).
Your workaround solution would then translate to:
{
"$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2015-01-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
"contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
"parameters": {},
"variables": {},
"resources": [],
"outputs": {
"contentVersion": {
"type": "string",
"value": "[deployment().properties.template.contentVersion]"
}
}
}

Answer 2

I also can't find a way to get it in the outputs. According to the azure official document, we could know that contentVersion could the value you supplied.
contentVersion: Version of the template (such as 1.0.0.0). You can provide any value for this element. When deploying resources using the template, this value can be used to make sure that the right template is being used.
So my workaround is that you could define it as a parameter then you could get it from outputs. The following is the demo code. You also could give your idea to Azure team
{
"$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2015-01-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
"contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
"parameters": {
"contentVersion": {
"type": "string",
"defaultValue": "1.0.0.0",
"metadata": {
"description": "contentVersion"
}
}
},
"variables": {
},
"resources": [
],
"outputs": {
"contentVersion": {
"type": "string",
"value": "[parameters('contentVersion')]"
}
}
}