[FR] Force type when doing environment variable substitution

[flyfire2002]

Component(s)

processor/resource

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

When substituting env variables like "00001" (as a string) (e.g. into an attribute), the type of the produced value is automatically Int. This causes leading 0s to be stripped. (i.e. result is Int(1)) I want to be able to force it to type Str at substitution.

Describe the solution you'd like

Be able to declare type when substituting environment vars.

Describe alternatives you've considered

attribute: convert: it is done after the value is already substituted as an Int, so in this case it will be doing Int(1) => Str(1), which is still not the same as Str(00001).

Additional context

With config

  resource/common_labels:
    attributes:
    - key: some_id
      value: "${id}"
      action: upsert

When the env var id = "00001", the value of the attribute "some_id" will be Int(1).
If we do a

    - key: some_id
      action: convert
      converted_type: string

afterwards, the value is Str(1) which is still different from "00001" / Str(00001).

[github-actions]

Pinging code owners:

• processor/resource: @dmitryax

See Adding Labels via Comments if you do not have permissions to add labels yourself.

[github-actions]

This issue has been inactive for 60 days. It will be closed in 60 days if there is no activity. To ping code owners by adding a component label, see Adding Labels via Comments, or if you are unsure of which component this issue relates to, please ping @open-telemetry/collector-contrib-triagers. If this issue is still relevant, please ping the code owners or leave a comment explaining why it is still relevant. Otherwise, please close it.

Pinging code owners:

• processor/resource: @dmitryax

See Adding Labels via Comments if you do not have permissions to add labels yourself.

[Aneurysm9]

This is still an issue, though not with the resource processor. See open-telemetry/opentelemetry-specification#4281 (comment).