One of the most common sources of confusion for PowerApps beginners is the order of execution of functions. Unlike some other programming languages, PowerApps executes functions from the inside out, meaning that the innermost function is evaluated first, and then the next one, and so on. This can have important implications for the logic and performance of your app. In this blog post, I will explain this concept with some examples and tips to help you avoid common pitfalls.

Let’s start with a simple example. Suppose you have a text input control named TextInput1, and you want to display its value in a label control named Label1, but only if the value is a valid email address. You might be tempted to write something like this in the Text property of Label1:

If(IsMatch(TextInput1.Text, Email), TextInput1.Text, "")

This looks like a reasonable formula, but it won’t work as expected. Why? Because PowerApps executes functions from the inside out, so it will evaluate TextInput1.Text first, then IsMatch, and then If. This means that TextInput1.Text will always be passed to IsMatch, regardless of whether it is empty or not. And since IsMatch returns false for an empty string, the If function will always return an empty string as well.

To fix this problem, you need to change the order of the functions, so that the If function is evaluated first, and then the IsMatch function. You can do this by using parentheses to group the functions, like this:

If(TextInput1.Text <> "", IsMatch(TextInput1.Text, Email), false)

This formula will evaluate TextInput1.Text first, and then check if it is not empty. If it is not empty, it will pass it to IsMatch and check if it is a valid email address. If it is empty, it will return false. Then, based on the result of the If function, it will display either TextInput1.Text or an empty string in Label1.

This is a simple example, but it illustrates how important it is to understand the order of execution of functions in PowerApps. Here are some general tips to help you avoid common mistakes:

• Use parentheses to group functions and control the order of execution.
• Use variables to store intermediate results and avoid repeating calculations.
• Use the Evaluate function to test your formulas and see how they are executed.
• Use the Monitor tool to debug your app and see the values of variables and controls.

I hope this blog post helped you understand how PowerApps executes functions from the inside out. If you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment below. Happy PowerApping!