How to pass boolean parameter value in pipeline to downstream jobs? - jenkins

Question

I'm using Jenkins v2.1 with the integrated delivery pipeline feature (https://jenkins.io/solutions/pipeline/) to orchestrate two existing builds (build and deploy).
In my parameterized build I have 3 user parameters setup, which also needs to be selectable in the pipeline.
The pipeline script is as follows:
node: {
stage 'build'
build job: 'build', parameters: [[$class: 'StringParameterValue', name: 'target', value: target], [$class: 'ListSubversionTagsParameterValue', name: 'release', tag: release], [$class: 'BooleanParameterValue', name: 'update_composer', value: update_composer]]
stage 'deploy'
build job: 'deploy', parameters: [[$class: 'StringParameterValue', name: 'target', value: target]]
}
This works correctly except for the BooleanParameterValue. When I build the pipeline the following error is thrown:
java.lang.ClassCastException: hudson.model.BooleanParameterValue.value expects boolean but received class java.lang.String
How can I resolve this typecasting error?
Or even better, is there a less cumbersome way in which I can just pass ALL the pipeline parameters to the downstream job.

Answer 1

In addition to Jesse Glick answer, if you want to pass string parameter then use:
build job: 'your-job-name',
parameters: [
string(name: 'passed_build_number_param', value: String.valueOf(BUILD_NUMBER)),
string(name: 'complex_param', value: 'prefix-' + String.valueOf(BUILD_NUMBER))
]

Answer 2

Assuming
value: update_composer
was the issue, try
value: Boolean.valueOf(update_composer)
is there a less cumbersome way in which I can just pass ALL the pipeline parameters to the downstream job
Not that I know of, at least not without using Jenkins API calls and disabling the Groovy sandbox.

Answer 3

like Jesse Jesse Glick and abguy said you can enumerate string into Boolean type:
Boolean.valueOf(string_variable)
or the opposite Boolean into string:
String.valueOf(boolean_variable)
in my case I had to to downstream Boolean parameter to another job.
So for this you will need the use the class BooleanParameterValue :
build job: 'downstream_job_name', parameters:
[
[$class: 'BooleanParameterValue', name: 'parameter_name', value: false],
], wait: true

Answer 4

build job: 'downstream_job_name', parameters: [
booleanParam(name: 'parameter_name', value: false)
]
(cf. https://www.jenkins.io/doc/pipeline/steps/pipeline-build-step/#-build-%20build%20a%20job)

Answer 5

Jenkins "boolean" parameters are really just a shortcut for the "choice parameter" type with the choices hardcoded to the strings "true" and "false", and with a checkbox to set the string variable. But in the end, it is just that: a string variable, with nothing to do with a true boolean. That's why you need to convert the string to a boolean if you don't want to do a string comparison like:
if (myBoolean == "true")

Answer 6

Not sure if this answers this question. But I was looking for something else. Highly recommend see this 2 minute video. If you wanted to get into more details then see docs - Handling Parameters and this link
And then if you have something like blue ocean, the choices would look something like this:
As discussed in the video, Jenkins is blue because it's using Blue Ocean Plugin
You define and access your variables like this:
pipeline {
agent any
parameters {
string(defaultValue: "TEST", description: 'What environment?', name: 'userFlag')
choice(choices: ['TESTING', 'STAGING', 'PRODUCTION'], description: 'Select field for target environment', name: 'DEPLOY_ENV')
}
stages {
stage("foo") {
steps {
echo "flag: ${params.userFlag}"
echo "flag: ${params.DEPLOY_ENV}"
}
}
}
}
Automated builds will pick up the default params. But if you do it manually then you get the option to choose.
And then assign values like this:

Answer 7

Things are much easier nowadays: the builtin Snippet Generator supports the 'build' step (I don't know since when though).