`az deployment what-if` incorrectly quotes string values

[afscrome]

Bicep version
Bicep CLI version 0.3.255 (589f037)

Describe the bug

When doing a what-if deployment through the AZ CLI, changed strings are listed with double quotes. However bicep only supports single quotes, so I'd expect these to be single quoted

  ~ Microsoft.Web/sites/SITE-NAME [2020-06-01]
    + properties.siteConfig.http20Enabled:       true
    + properties.siteConfig.linuxFxVersion:      "Docker|nginx:alphine"
    + properties.siteConfig.localMySqlEnabled:   false
    + properties.siteConfig.netFrameworkVersion: "v4.6"

To Reproduce

az deployment sub what-if sample.bicep

[alex-frankel]

Good catch - though I don't know if I would technically say this is wrong. There shouldn't be an expectation that the what-if text output should be immediately usable in bicep code.

That being said it would still be nice if we did single-quoted strings if we knew it was coming from bicep. Not sure if it is worth the investment though. cc @shenglol

[majastrz]

The user deploying may not be the same as the user authoring the file. From their perspective, output would appear to randomly change quote style.

[shenglol]

It won't be hard to implement this, but I agree with @majastrz. Essentially, The What-If change definitions are not modelled in Bicep. I would like to hear more people's thoughts on this.

[slavizh]

I do not think this is a big problem but ultimately what-if probably does not know if this is bicep deployment or not as at the end it is ARM Template deployment no matter if you are using bicep or not. Could be option for Az cli to re-format the results differently based on if you provide .bicep or .json file in the command.

[afscrome]

There shouldn't be an expectation that the what-if

This does seem fair, however the output ends up looking very much like valid bicep, so equally don't think it's unreasonable for someone to think they're the same (even if they're not). That said, not sure it's the end of the world if this isn't changed

#922 would make double quotes legal in bicep, making most of this discussion moot.

[Eonasdan]

This might be related if not, please redirect me.

I have a bicep file like so:

@secure()
param sql_password string
param sql_server_name string
param sql_admin string = 'cube'
param db_name string = 'sonarqube'

If I use either what-if or create thusly:

az deployment group what-if --resource-group RG --template-file sonarqube.bicep \ 
    --parameters sql_server_name='mySqlServer' ...

With create I get an error that the server name ''mySqlServer'' is invalid.

what-if produces:

 + Microsoft.Sql/servers/'spectorqube' [2021-05-01-preview]

      apiVersion:                               "2021-05-01-preview"
      id:                                       "/subscriptions/.../providers/Microsoft.Sql/servers/'mySqlServer'"
      location:                                 "eastus"
      name:                                     "'mySqlServer'"
      properties.administratorLogin:            "*******"
      properties.administratorLoginPassword:    "*******"
      properties.minimalTlsVersion:             "1.2"
      properties.publicNetworkAccess:           "Enabled"
      properties.restrictOutboundNetworkAccess: "Disabled"
      type:                                     "Microsoft.Sql/servers"