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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-13T19:12:19+00:00

I am using Execute Process task in SSIS 2008 R2. I have a variable

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I am using Execute Process task in SSIS 2008 R2. I have a variable idVar which is of data type Int32. I need to pass this variable to property Arguments of the task so the process executable can take this variable as argument. I use expression to assign @idVar to Arguments.

Now the system says I need to convert Int to String so I used the following expression in the expression builder

(DT_STR, 10, 1252) @[User::IdVar]

It gives the following error: 

Expression cannot be evaluated.

Additional information:
The expression "(DT_STR, 10, 1252) @[User:IdVar]" has a result type of "DT_STR", 
which cannot be converted to a supported type.

(Microsoft.DataTransformationServices.Controls)

What is the correct way to type cast the number to string?

Error

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Cause of the issue:

    Arguments property in Execute Process Task available on the Control Flow tab is expecting a value of data type DT_WSTR and not DT_STR.

    SSIS 2008 R2 package illustrating the issue and fix:

    Create an SSIS package in Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) 2008 R2 and name it as SO_13177007.dtsx. Create a package variable with the following information.

    Name   Scope        Data Type  Value
------ ------------ ---------- -----
IdVar  SO_13177007  Int32      123

    Variables pane

    Drag and drop an Execute Process Task onto the Control Flow tab and name it as Pass arguments

    Control Flow tab

    Double-click the Execute Process Task to open the Execute Process Task Editor. Click Expressions page and then click the Ellipsis button against the Expressions property to view the Property Expression Editor.

    Execute Process Task Editor

    On the Property Expression Editor, select the property Arguments and click the Ellipsis button against the property to open the Expression Builder.

    Property Expression Editor

    On the Expression Builder, enter the following expression and click Evaluate Expression. This expression tries to convert the integer value in the variable IdVar to string data type.

    (DT_STR, 10, 1252) @[User::IdVar]

    Expression Builder - DT_STR

    Clicking Evaluate Expression will display the following error message because the Arguments property on Execute Process Task expects a value of data type DT_WSTR.

    Integer to ANSI string conversion error

    To fix the issue, update the expression as shown below to convert the integer value to data type DT_WSTR. Clicking Evaluate Expression will display the value in the Evaluated value text area.

    (DT_WSTR, 10) @[User::IdVar]

    Expression Builder - DT_WSTR

    References:

    To understand the differences between the data types DT_STR and DT_WSTR in SSIS, read the documentation Integration Services Data Types on MSDN. Here are the quotes from the documentation about these two string data types.

    DT_STR

    A null-terminated ANSI/MBCS character string with a maximum length of 8000 characters. (If a column value contains additional null terminators, the string will be truncated at the occurrence of the first null.)

    DT_WSTR

    A null-terminated Unicode character string with a maximum length of 4000 characters. (If a column value contains additional null terminators, the string will be truncated at the occurrence of the first null.)

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