Write Azure Data Factory Output Parameter to dataset - azure-data-factory-2

Is it possible to write an output parameter to a dataset?
I have a meta data activity that stores the file name of an azure blob dataset and I would like write that value into another azure blob dataset as an additional column via a copy activity.
Thanks

If you are looking to get the output of the previous operation as an input to the next operation, you could probably go ahead in the following manner,
I am hoping that the attribute you are getting is the child Items, the values for this can be obtained in the next step using the following expression.
#activity('Name_of_activity').output.childItems.
This would return an Array of your subfolders.
The following link should help you with the expression in ADF

Related

How to get an array from JSON in the Azure Data Factory?

My actual (not properly working) setup has two pipelines:
Get API data to lake: for each row in metadata table in SQL calling the REST API and copy the reply (json-files) to the Blob datalake.
Copy data from the lake to SQL: For Each file auto create table in SQL.
The result is the correct number of tables in SQL. Only the content of the tables is not what I hoped for. They all contain 1 column named odata.metadata and 1 entry, the link to the metadata.
If I manually remove the metadata from the JSON in the datalake and then run the second pipeline, the SQL table is what I want to have.
Have:
{ "odata.metadata":"https://test.com",
"value":[
{
"Key":"12345",
"Title":"Name",
"Status":"Test"
}]}
Want:
[{
"Key":"12345",
"Title":"Name",
"Status":"Test"
}]
I tried to add $.['value'] in the API call. The result then was no odata.metadata line, but the array started with {value: which resulted in an error copying to SQL
I also tried to use mapping (in sink) to SQL. That gives the wanted result for the dataset I manually specified the mapping for, but only goes well for the dataset with the same number of column in the array. I don't want to manually do the mapping for 170 calls...
Does anyone know how handle this in ADF? For now I feel like the only solution is to add a Python step in the pipeline, but I hope for a somewhat standard ADF way to do this!
You can add another pipeline with dataflow to remove the content from JSON file before copying data to SQL, using flatten formatters.
Before flattening the JSON file:
This is what I see when JSON data copied to SQL database without flattening:
After flattening the JSON file:
Added a pipeline with dataflow to flatten the JSON file to remove 'odata.metadata' content from the array.
Source preview:
Flatten formatter:
Select the required object from the Input array
After selecting value object from input array, you can see only the values under value in Flatten formatter preview.
Sink preview:
File generated after flattening.
Copy the generated file as Input to SQL.
Note: If your Input file schema is not constant, you can enable Allow schema drift to allow schema changes
Reference: Schema drift in mapping data flow

Using ADF Data Flow Derived Column transform against nested Delta structures

I'm trying to use a derived column transform within an ADF (Gen 2) Data Flow where I've ingested a Delta table with nested structures. I'm struggling with the syntax needed to flatten out these structures and no column info is displayed despite me being able to preview the data.
Such a structure would be:
{
"ContactId":"1002657",
"Name":{
"FirstName":"Donna",
"FullName":"Donna Brittain",
"LastName":"Brittain"
}
}
Data Preview working OK:
Data Preview
The structure of my Delta table:
Delta Table Struct
The error I'm getting trying to reference a nested column:
Derived Column Task
How can I reference a nested column such as Name.FirstName to flatten it out to FirstName and why is it not showing up in any of the mappings?
There is a easy way to flatten the nested structures. We can use Copy activity in ADF firstly, it will automate flatten the nested column.
Copy the data into Azure Storage such as data lake(here I used Azure Data Lake Storage Gen 2), then we can use it as data source in the Data Flow.
We can create a txt or csv file with headers in data lake.
Then we can define a Copy activity in ADF and set the mapping.
After run debug, we can see the result. We can use it as data source in data flow.
Update:
In the sink,we can set the value of the Max rows per file option like follows:
ADF will divide the file into several files

Data Flow output to Azure SQL Database contains only NULL data on Azure Data Factory

I'm testing the data flow on my Azure Data Factory. I created Data Flow with the following details:
Source dataset linked service - from CSV files dataset from Blob storage
Sink linked service - Azure SQL database with pre-created table
My CSV files are quite simple as they contain only 2 columns (PARENT, CHILD). So, my table in SQL DB also have only 2 columns.
For the sink setting of my data flow, I have allowed insert data and leaving other options as default.
I have also mapped the 2 columns for input and output columns as per screenshot.
The pipeline with data flow ran successfully when I checked the result, I could see thqat 5732 rows were processed. Is this the correct way to check? As this is the first time I try this functionality in Azure Data Factory.
But, when I click on Data preview tab, they are all NULL value.
And; when I checked my Azure SQL DB in the table where I tried to insert the data from CSV files from Blob storage with selecting top 1000 rows from this table, I don't see any data.
Could you please let me know what I configured incorrectly on my Data Flow? Thank you very much in advance.
Here is the screenshot of ADF data flow source data, it does see the data on the right side as they are not NULL, but on the left side are all NULLs. I imagine that the right side are the data from the CSV from the source on the blob right? And the left side is the sink destination as the table is empty for now?
And here is the screenshot for the sink inspect input, I think this is correct as it reads the 2 columns correctly (Parent, Child), is it?
After adding Map drifted, to map "Parent" => "parent" and "Child" => "child"
I get this error message after running the pipeline.
When checking on sink data preview, I get this error message. It seems like there is incorrect mapping?
I rename the MapDrifted1 expression to "toString(byName('Parent1))" and Child1 as suggested.
The data flow executed successfully, however I still get NULL data in the sink SQL table.
Can you copy/paste the script behind your data flow design graph? Go to the ADF UI, open the data flow, then click the Script button on top right.
In your Source transformation, click on Data Preview to see the data. Make sure you are seeing your data, not NULLs. Also, look at the Inspect on the INPUT for your Sink, to see if ADF is reading additional columns.

Azure Data Factory 2 : How to split a file into multiple output files

I'm using Azure Data Factory and am looking for the complement to the "Lookup" activity. Basically I want to be able to write a single line to a file.
Here's the setup:
Read from a CSV file in blob store using a Lookup activity
Connect the output of that to a For Each
within the For Each, take each record (a line from the file read by the Lookup activity) and write it to a distinct file, named dynamically.
Any clues on how to accomplish that?
Use Data flow, use the derived column activity to create a filename column. Use the filename column in sink. Details on how to implement dynamic filenames in ADF is describe here: https://kromerbigdata.com/2019/04/05/dynamic-file-names-in-adf-with-mapping-data-flows/
Data Flow would probably be better for this, but as a quick hack, you can do the following to read the text file line by line in a pipeline:
Define your source dataset to output a line as a single column. Normally I would use "NoDelimiter" for this, but that isn't supported by Lookup. As a workaround, define it with an incorrect Column Delimiter (like | or \t for a CSV file). You should also go to the Schema tab, and CLEAR the schema. This will generate a column in the output named "Prop_0".
In the foreach activity, set the Items to the Lookup's "output.value" and check "Sequential".
Inside the foreach, you can use item().Prop_0 to grab the text of the line:
To the best of my understanding, creating a blob isn't directly supported by pipelines [hence my suggestion above to look into Data Flow]. It is, however, very simple to do in Logic Apps. If I was tackling this problem, I would create a logic app with an HTTP Request Received trigger, then call it from ADF with a Web activity and send the text line and dynamic file name in the payload.

Getting files and folders in the datalake while reading from datafactory

While reading azure sql table data (which actually consists of path of the directories) from azure data factory by using the paths how to dynamically get the files from the datalake.
Can any one tell me what should I give in the dataset
Screenshot
You could use lookup activity to read data from azure sql, and then following it by an foreach activity. And then, pass #item(). to your dataset parameter k1.