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NE0
Regular Visitor

Using 'contains' with Case Sensitivity

Is anyone aware of a change to the 'contains' operator

toLower(outputs('Update_item')?['body/Transferee_x0020_Email'])

 

We have dozens of other Flows that could potentially be broken because of this change. This is not a question so much as a warning about the latest change. We had to but toLower on both sides of the condition to fix it

 

NE0_0-1628017134086.png

 

This was working for months until a couple days ago when contains was failing due to case sensitivity.

 

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poweractivate
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

@NE0 

 

I think I remember that those kinds of fields in Power Automate, when not using an expression, were case insensitive on both sides in the past when I tested. Not just for contains, but equals or anything else in the Condition. I also remember that comparisons between strings such as between two variables, etc. were case insensitive on both sides in the past when I tested and for all variations like "contains", "is equals to", etc.  

 

However, when I tested recently, I noticed that they are now case sensitive at the moment.

 

Reason I might remember that in past the comparison was case insensitive was because I thought it was something to remember, as I had expected the comparison to be case sensitive.  One time, when testing, I was surprised to find that comparisons like the ones you were doing in the condition, were case insensitive by default. For example, comparing SOMETHING to Something, actually returned true and not false to my surprise. Since the comparison was case insensitive I think it was something I made a note of in my mind as a "peculiar behavior" and something to remember about Power Automate. I believe I thought at the time this peculiarity might be there to make it easier on specific kinds of users of Power Automate and was there intentionally, but I noted it as a peculiarity nonetheless.

 

If the behavior was changed, it would now be operating the way I was expecting it to operate before. However, if a change was indeed made, I could understand your frustration about it relying on the specific behavior. I believe I might have had a habit of putting the toLower and trim type functions anyway all over the place as standard practice in cases where this would vary, despite knowing that the comparisons were case insensitive by default, sort of as if not really sure that they were suppose to be case insensitive in the first place the whole time. If there was actually a change, this habit of mine may have been very much warranted in that event.

 

I am not exactly sure if there was a change or when there was a change, however, you might be right that before this was case sensitive, I believe that it might have been like that before and you might be on to something here. I am not exactly sure so someone else may have to confirm, all I can say is I do get a case sensitive comparison by default when testing right now as in the below:

 

8321-som.png

 

test-8321-som-01.gif

 

I also do not recall if the peculiarity might have been ONLY when using text in the condition clauses themselves with no expression- and not between Dynamic Content of two expression blocks. To my recollection, the above scenario was also case insensitive. However, in case, I also repeated the test with hard coded values in the conditions and made sure of no leading or trailing whitespace. I do get the same result now of "false" as in the above, and I believe in the past, this may have been considered to execute the "true" branch i.e. case insensitive:

8321-som-02.png

 

8321-som-03.png

 

 I cannot confirm or deny that a change was made. The only thing I might be able to do, is that I relay the above to tell you that I think you might be on to something and some change has been made. I do not know if a change was made or how recent it was made, but it may be definitely something to make a note of in case. 

 

I do not know for sure if anything in the above is true. It's possible there was no change at all or it worked the same before as it does now. I could not tell you for sure.

 

Case sensitivity is a hyper-specific behavior, but I can imagine many people may have relied on it thinking it was a "user convenience " thing - that is, assuming this is all even true in the first place that something has changed.

 

The correct course of action is probably to make the change you made on all the Flows which depend on the hyper-specific behavior.

 

In case this is impractical for you to do and you were relying on the case insensitivity, it is possible that you were not the only one who relied on it. In the case a change was in fact made, even if I had noted it as a peculiarity, if it affected a lot of people, maybe it is better to revert it. This of course all presumes there is any change of any kind in the first place.

 

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3 REPLIES 3
poweractivate
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

@NE0 

 

I think I remember that those kinds of fields in Power Automate, when not using an expression, were case insensitive on both sides in the past when I tested. Not just for contains, but equals or anything else in the Condition. I also remember that comparisons between strings such as between two variables, etc. were case insensitive on both sides in the past when I tested and for all variations like "contains", "is equals to", etc.  

 

However, when I tested recently, I noticed that they are now case sensitive at the moment.

 

Reason I might remember that in past the comparison was case insensitive was because I thought it was something to remember, as I had expected the comparison to be case sensitive.  One time, when testing, I was surprised to find that comparisons like the ones you were doing in the condition, were case insensitive by default. For example, comparing SOMETHING to Something, actually returned true and not false to my surprise. Since the comparison was case insensitive I think it was something I made a note of in my mind as a "peculiar behavior" and something to remember about Power Automate. I believe I thought at the time this peculiarity might be there to make it easier on specific kinds of users of Power Automate and was there intentionally, but I noted it as a peculiarity nonetheless.

 

If the behavior was changed, it would now be operating the way I was expecting it to operate before. However, if a change was indeed made, I could understand your frustration about it relying on the specific behavior. I believe I might have had a habit of putting the toLower and trim type functions anyway all over the place as standard practice in cases where this would vary, despite knowing that the comparisons were case insensitive by default, sort of as if not really sure that they were suppose to be case insensitive in the first place the whole time. If there was actually a change, this habit of mine may have been very much warranted in that event.

 

I am not exactly sure if there was a change or when there was a change, however, you might be right that before this was case sensitive, I believe that it might have been like that before and you might be on to something here. I am not exactly sure so someone else may have to confirm, all I can say is I do get a case sensitive comparison by default when testing right now as in the below:

 

8321-som.png

 

test-8321-som-01.gif

 

I also do not recall if the peculiarity might have been ONLY when using text in the condition clauses themselves with no expression- and not between Dynamic Content of two expression blocks. To my recollection, the above scenario was also case insensitive. However, in case, I also repeated the test with hard coded values in the conditions and made sure of no leading or trailing whitespace. I do get the same result now of "false" as in the above, and I believe in the past, this may have been considered to execute the "true" branch i.e. case insensitive:

8321-som-02.png

 

8321-som-03.png

 

 I cannot confirm or deny that a change was made. The only thing I might be able to do, is that I relay the above to tell you that I think you might be on to something and some change has been made. I do not know if a change was made or how recent it was made, but it may be definitely something to make a note of in case. 

 

I do not know for sure if anything in the above is true. It's possible there was no change at all or it worked the same before as it does now. I could not tell you for sure.

 

Case sensitivity is a hyper-specific behavior, but I can imagine many people may have relied on it thinking it was a "user convenience " thing - that is, assuming this is all even true in the first place that something has changed.

 

The correct course of action is probably to make the change you made on all the Flows which depend on the hyper-specific behavior.

 

In case this is impractical for you to do and you were relying on the case insensitivity, it is possible that you were not the only one who relied on it. In the case a change was in fact made, even if I had noted it as a peculiarity, if it affected a lot of people, maybe it is better to revert it. This of course all presumes there is any change of any kind in the first place.

 

chico
Kudo Commander
Kudo Commander

@NE0 ,

 

did this all change for you on the day of July 30?

yes, between the 30th and aug 4th is when it surfaced

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