Unable to pass variables through gitlab bridge to another pipeline - variables

Question

Here is my simple yaml file
image: my/docker/image
stages:
- print
- testvarbridge
variables:
INCOMING_VAR: $ENV_VAR
print_these:
stage: print
script:
- echo $INCOMING_VAR
- export $INCOMING_VAR
testvarbridge:
stage: testvarbridge
variables:
TEST_VAR: $INCOMING_VAR
trigger:
project: my-project/pipeline-two
branch: ci-cd
the $ENV_VAR is a variable in the project for testing... it just says "this_is_the_variable"
When I trigger the pipleine..the print stage correctly prints:
echo $INCOMING_VAR
this_is_the_variable
But when the second pipeline is triggered, it is just set up to do a simple echo command of the variable that is passed in.. it echo's this:
echo TEST_VAR
$ENV_VAR
As you can see, the when the testvarbridge stage sets up the variable TEST_VAR, it is grabbing the $ENV_VAR variable up top as a literal string. It does not evaluate it and grab the value associated with that variable. Am I missing something?

Answer 1

This was reported 3 years ago in gitlab-org/gitlab-runner issue 1809: "Use variable inside other variable".
A workaround is to set vars in a before_script instead of variables.
So the example given in the issue would work if written as:
before_script:
- export VAR1="${CI_PIPELINE_ID}"
- export VAR2="test-${VAR1}"
Update February 2020: Philippe Charrière adds:
the issue is not closed - the milestone is 13.0 (for May 2020)
Update Sept. 2021,
One last validation is pending and if that's solved then we are shipping this thing in 14.3.
So, soon (14.3, Sept. 2021):
this-job-name-123:
except:
variables:
- $CI_COMMIT_MESSAGE =~ /Skip $CI_JOB_NAME/i
script:
- echo The job runs unless the commit message contains "Skip this-job-name-123"