Ansible looping over nested variables

Question

I have a set of variables which define FQDNs.

domains:
  - erp: erp.mycompany.com
  - crm: crm.mycompany.com
  - git: git.mycompany.com

Indeed, I both need to loop over them and access them namely (in a template file). So accessing them like domains.erpworks like a charm. But I can't get ansible to loop over these.

Obviously, if I do:

- name: Print domains
  debug:
    msg: test {{ item }}
  with_items:
    - "{{ domains }}"

It prints both the key and the value… And if I do:

- name: Print domains
  debug:
    msg: test {{ domains[{{ item }}] }}
  with_items:
    - "{{ domain }}"

But that doesn't work. I also tried the hashes form as mentionned in the docs, but didn't get any luck either…

Ansible seems quite complicated with nested lists, see my question here: stackoverflow.com/questions/36206551/…. Probably playbooks should not be overengineered or you should implement some custom plugins, as the syntax gets really nasty. — allo
– allo, Commented May 22, 2016 at 14:21

Buzut · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-22 16:18:03Z

2

Finally, I had to use a dict.

It didn't work the first time because unlike with_items, which has the items going each on their own line, with_dict is a one liner without - before the element to loop through.

domains:
  erp:
    address: erp.mycompany.com
  crm:
    address: crm.mycompany.com
  git:
    address: git.mycompany.com

# used by letsencrypt
webserverType: apache2
withCerts: true

tasks:

- name: Print phone records
  debug:
    msg: "{{ item.value.address }}"
  with_dict: "{{ domains }}"

# I can still access a given domain by its name when needed like so:
{{ domains.erp.address }}

edited May 22, 2016 at 16:18

answered May 22, 2016 at 15:38

Buzut

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Comments

barnesm999 · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-23 17:43:09Z

1

Looks like you figured out your issue. Your original attempt uses a list of dictionaries that do not contain the same keys, making it difficult to access the values uniformly across each list item.

Your second solution creates a dictionary where the keys refer to other dictionaries.

Another solution than what you posted if you still wanted to use a list:

    - hosts: localhost
      vars:
        domains:
          - name: erp
            address: erp.mycompany.com
          - name: crm
            address: crm.mycompany.com
          - name: git
            address: git.mycompany.com
      tasks:
        - name: Print phone records
          debug:
            msg: "{{ item.address }}"
          with_items: "{{ domains }}"

To me this approach is simpler but your second approach works as well.

answered May 23, 2016 at 17:43

barnesm999

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2 Comments

Buzut Over a year ago

Thx for the answer. Nevertheless, with this approach, I don't seem to be able to reference my domains by name. If in some other part of my playbook, I need for exemple to access erp's domain name, how can I address it? domains.0.address is really error prone.

barnesm999 Over a year ago

Ah you are correct. I misunderstood your use case. Your approach is probably the most reliable way if you need to get the domain items individually and not just loop through them.

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