I recently presented, a workshop at the TOHack to get started with Azure. The goal was to try different Azure services, and see how we could augment an existing website using serverless function and artificial intelligence. (Aussi disponible en français)
During this workshop, a website is deployed automatically from GitHub. Then by adding an Azure Function and using the Vision API of Azure Cognitive Services, the final solution is able to detect when uploaded pictures are or not dogs and keep our image folder "clean". We call that application: The automatic Not a Dog application.
The step by step instruction with the code can be found on GitHub - Not-a-Dog-Workshop. The workshop can be done in about 45-60 minutes.
I also did a video that is available on my YouTube channel:
You have questions, you are blocked, it will be a pleasure to help you.
Install WSL 2 on Windows 10 (Thomas Maurer) - Awesome tutorial. If like me you didn't want to wait until the next Windows release or take the time to compile and debug a deployment....this tutorial is for us!
In a project using Azure Logic Apps that I am working on, I needed to manipulate strings. I could create APIs or Azure Functions, but the code is very simple and is not using any external libraries. In this post, I will show you how to use the new Inline Code to execute your code snippet directly inside your Logic Apps.
Quick Context
The Logic App will read a file from my OneDrive (it will also work with DropBox, Box, etc.). Here an example of the file:
Nice tutorial that explains how to build, using postman, an efficient API.[cloud.azure.postman.tools]
The goal is to extract tags, contained between the square brackets, from the text.
Logic App: Get File Content
From the Azure Portal, create a new Logic App by clicking the big green "+" button in the top left corner and searching for Logic App.
For this demo, I will use the Interval as a trigger because I will execute the Logic App manually.
The first step will be a Get File Content action from the OneDrive connector. Once you authorized Azure to access your OneDrive folder, select the file you want to read. For me, it's /dev/simpleNote.txt
Integration Account
To access the workflowContext the Azure Logic App required an Integration account. Next step would be to create one. Save the current Logic App, and click on the big "+" button in the top right corner. This time search for integration. Select Integration Account, and complete the form to create it.
We now need to assign it to our Logic App. From the Logic App blade, in the options list select Workflow Settings. Then select your integration account, and don't forget to save!
Logic App: Inline Code
To add the action at the end of your workflow, click the New step button. Search for Inline Code, and select the action Execute JavaScript Code.
Before copy-pasting the code into the new Inline Code action let's have a quick look.
var note = "" + workflowContext.actions.Get_file_content.outputs.body;
var posTag = note.lastIndexOf("[") + 1;
var cleanNote = {};
if(posTag > 0){
cleanNote.tags = note.substring(posTag, note.length-1);
cleanNote.msg = note.substring(0,posTag-1);
}
return cleanNote;
On the first line, we assign a variable note the content of the Get_file_content outputs. We access it using the workflowContext. This context has access to the trigger and the actions. To find the name of the action you can replace the spaces by the underscore character "_".
You can also switch to Code View, and see the name of all components from the JSON code.
Logic App: Use Inline Code Result
Of course, you can use the output of your Inline Code with other steps. You just need to use the Result from the dynamic content menu.
If for some reason the dynamic content list doesn't contain your Inline Code, you can always add the code directly @body('Cleaning_Note')?['body'].
Your Logic App should now look like this:
Verdict
The Inline code is very promising. Right now it's limited to JAvaScript and cannot access variable nor loops. However, for simple code that doesn't require any references, it's easier to maintain and deploy. You can learn more about what is exactly covered or not here.
And it works as this result shows.
Top 10 C# Developer Books for Summer 2019 (Claudio Bernasconi) - Great list of books to get started with C# or as a developer. I'll definitely refer people to it when asked where to start.
Presentation Tips for Technical Talks (Tanya Janca) - This post is filled with great and simple tips that will for sure improve the experience of your attendees and ours.
Nice book. There is always a good story to make a correlation with his current point. Then it could go in a different direction with another story. All the stories are complementary and are adding layer by layer to the more complex message that is delivered to us. Easy to read, enjoyable from the beginning until the last word.
You are done with your code and you are ready to deploy it in Azure. You execute the PowerShell or Bash script you have and BOOM! The error message saying that this name is already taken. In this post, I will show you a simple way to look like a boss and make your deployment working all the time.
____ with given name ____ already exists.
The tricks other use
You could try to add a digit at the end of the resource name (ex: demo-app1, demo-app2, demo-app123...), but that’s not really professional. You could create a random string and append it to the name. Yes, that will works, once. If you are trying to redeploy your resources that value will change, therefore it will never be the same.
The solution would be to have a unique string that is constant in our environment.
The solution
The solution is to use the function UniqueString() part of the Azure Resource Manager (ARM) template. If we look in the documentation, UniqueString creates a deterministic hash string based on the values provided as parameters. Let’s see a quick example of an ARM template to deploy a website named demo-app.
If you try to deploy this template, you will have an error because the name demo-app is already taken... no surprise here.
Let’s create a new variable suffix and we will use the Resource Group Id and Location as values. Then we just need to append this value to our name using the function concat().
It’s that simple! Now every time you will deploy a unique string will be added to your resource name. That string will always be the same for a Resource Group-Location deployment.
Because some resource types are more restrictive than others you may need adapt your new name. Maybe the name of your resource plus those thirteen characters hash will be too long... No problem, you can easily make it shorter and all lower case just by using substring() and toLower().
Voila, and now by using ARM template you can deploy and redeploy without any problem reproducing the same solution you built. To learn move about the ARM template you can jump in the documentation, where you will find samples, step-by-step tutorials and more.
If you have a specific question about ARM templates or if you would like to see more tips like this one, don't hesitate to ask in the comments section or reach out on social media!
Docker from the beginning — part III (Chris Noring) - Third of this docker series. I like how it is not only a happy path but the learning path with the fails and victories.
