# ansible ec2 module: using a variable inside an instance\_ids dictionary

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-ec2-module-using-a-variable-inside-an-instance-ids-dictionary/14689>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Tags:** aws\
**Created:** [March 4, 2014, 1:00am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-ec2-module-using-a-variable-inside-an-instance-ids-dictionary/14689 "2014-03-04T01:00:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![i\_iordanov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b3f665/32.png) [@i\_iordanov](https://forum.ansible.com/u/i_iordanov)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 1:00am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-ec2-module-using-a-variable-inside-an-instance-ids-dictionary/14689/1 "2014-03-04T01:00:07Z")

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Hey,

I would like to tag aws machines, but use a variable for the value of the tag. Is that possible?

I.e. instead of:

instance\_ids={“key1”:“value1”, “key2”:“value2”}

I’d like to see something like:

instance\_ids={“key1”:“{{var1}}”, “key2”:“{{var2}}”}

It doesn’t seem to be possible, but perhaps I’m not doing something right. I get an error:

failed: [localhost] =\> {“failed”: true}  
msg: unable to evaluate dictionary for instance\_tags

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![i\_iordanov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b3f665/32.png) [@i\_iordanov](https://forum.ansible.com/u/i_iordanov)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 1:24am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-ec2-module-using-a-variable-inside-an-instance-ids-dictionary/14689/2 "2014-03-04T01:24:05Z")

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Hi,

Replying to myself, as it seems this was my mistake. At some point I dropped some quotes by mistake.

instance\_ids=‘{“key1”:“{{var1}}”, “key2”:“{{var2}}”}’

does seem to work.