# Ansible 1.2 - changed behavior of with\_items?

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-1-2-changed-behavior-of-with-items/12882>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Tags:** ansible-project\
**Created:** [May 29, 2013, 12:02pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-1-2-changed-behavior-of-with-items/12882 "2013-05-29T12:02:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan2](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan2)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 12:02pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-1-2-changed-behavior-of-with-items/12882/1 "2013-05-29T12:02:31Z")

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Hmm.

Well, with\_items should take a list and not a hash table. I’m not sure why it used to work, in that case, because the value of item in your example wouldn’t be correct. (I am thinking it might not have worked, actually!)

Try changing sysctlentries to:

sysctlentries:

- { skey: ‘some\_key’, value: ‘value’ }

And then of course do:

{{ item.skey }} and {{ item.value }}

I should also say in 1.2, you can leave out all the $goop in many places, including the new conditional “when” as well as “with\_items”.

So the following is also fine syntax, and we generally try to not use $ in 1.2 playbooks (though they work for backwards compatibility)

with\_items: sysctlentries