# How to make an item in with\_items conditional? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Tags:** ubuntu\ **Created:** [December 11, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-make-an-item-in-with-items-conditional/19992 "2015-12-11T17:11:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Marc\_Abramowitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a5b964/32.png) [@Marc\_Abramowitz](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Marc_Abramowitz)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-make-an-item-in-with-items-conditional/19992/1 "2015-12-11T17:11:16Z")
Take this playbook: - hosts: mt1-dummys101 tasks: - name: Install apt packages sudo: true apt: pkg={{ item }} with\_items: - build-essential - libyaml-dev - python2.7-dev - “{{ ‘silversearcher-ag’ if ansible\_distribution\_major\_version == ‘14’ else ‘’ }}” How would I make it so that silversearcher-ag is installed only on Ubuntu 14 and is omitted for other operating systems? The above gives: TASK: [Install apt packages] \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* failed: [mt1-dummys101] =\> (item=build-essential,libyaml-dev,python2.7-dev,) =\> {“failed”: true, “item”: “build-essential,libyaml-dev,python2.7-dev,”} msg: No package matching ‘’ is available I also tried changing the empty string `''` to `omit` but that also fails: TASK: [Install apt packages] \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* failed: [mt1-dummys101] =\> (item=build-essential,libyaml-dev,python2.7-dev,\_\_omit\_place\_holder\_\_07ef1633a8f8d1dc718ffb780b3f0e54d7f7b02a) =\> {“failed”: true, “item”: “build-essential,libyaml-dev,python2.7-dev,\_\_omit\_place\_holder\_\_07ef1633a8f8d1dc718ffb780b3f0e54d7f7b02a”} msg: No package matching ‘\_\_omit\_place\_holder\_\_07ef1633a8f8d1dc718ffb780b3f0e54d7f7b02a’ is available Any way to do this? ---
**Author:** ![Dylan\_Martin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8797f3/32.png) [@Dylan\_Martin](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Dylan_Martin)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2015, 5:15pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-make-an-item-in-with-items-conditional/19992/2 "2015-12-11T17:15:40Z")
I’ve done it by having two lists in group vars files and doing a group\_by ---
**Author:** ![Mike\_Biancaniello](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dec6dc/32.png) [@Mike\_Biancaniello](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Mike_Biancaniello)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2015, 5:17pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-make-an-item-in-with-items-conditional/19992/3 "2015-12-11T17:17:13Z")
My first thought is to create a new task and use a when clause: ` - hosts: mt1-dummys101 tasks: - name: Install apt packages sudo: true apt: pkg={{ item }} with\_items: - build-essential - libyaml-dev - python2.7-dev - name: Install apt packages for version 14 sudo: true apt: pkg={{ item }} with\_items: - silversearcher-ag when: ansible\_distribution\_major\_version == ‘14’ ` ---
**Author:** ![Marc\_Abramowitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a5b964/32.png) [@Marc\_Abramowitz](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Marc_Abramowitz)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2015, 5:51pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-make-an-item-in-with-items-conditional/19992/4 "2015-12-11T17:51:17Z")
Yeah, this was what I went with for the time being. I’m curious if there are other ways, but this does seem to be a reasonable solution. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Brian\_Coca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@Brian\_Coca](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brian_Coca)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2015, 8:13pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-make-an-item-in-with-items-conditional/19992/5 "2015-12-11T20:13:21Z")
with\_items:    - "{{ (ansible\_distribution\_major\_version == '14')|ternary( 'silversearcher-ag','' }}" ---
**Author:** ![Marc\_Abramowitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a5b964/32.png) [@Marc\_Abramowitz](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Marc_Abramowitz)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2015, 8:53pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-make-an-item-in-with-items-conditional/19992/6 "2015-12-11T20:53:22Z")
Thanks, but that doesn’t work. E.g.: I used this slightly tweaked line: - “{{ (ansible\_distribution\_major\_version == ‘12’)|ternary(‘silversearcher-ag’, ‘’) }}” and if the condition is not true, then I get: TASK: [Install apt packages] \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* failed: [mt1-dummys101] =\> (item=build-essential,libyaml-dev,python2.7-dev,) =\> {“failed”: true, “item”: “build-essential,libyaml-dev,python2.7-dev,”} msg: No package matching ‘’ is available It seems that for this kind of thing to work, there would either need to be: - a way to tell with\_items to not add the item at all (by using “omit” perhaps, which doesn’t currently work in this context) - “apt” module would ignore a blank string or other sentinel value like “omit”. ---
**Author:** ![Marc\_Abramowitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a5b964/32.png) [@Marc\_Abramowitz](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Marc_Abramowitz)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2015, 8:55pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-make-an-item-in-with-items-conditional/19992/7 "2015-12-11T20:55:51Z")
And I would think the former would be more preferable as it is more generally applicable (would work with all modules). I think of “with\_items” as being analogous to a for loop in most programming languages. So I guess that means the feature that I am wishing I had here is analogous to a “continue” statement in those same programming languages. ---
**Author:** ![Brian\_Coca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@Brian\_Coca](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brian_Coca)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2015, 9:04pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-make-an-item-in-with-items-conditional/19992/8 "2015-12-11T21:04:48Z")
ah, thought you wanted an empty string, misread from your example. you'll have to use a when condition or dynamically construct the list, there is no way to have a list item return a 'delete this item', even None would return an empty element, but still and element. list: - 1 - 2   - \ is already a list of 3 items, no value of \ can remove the - in front of it as it is processed by YAML and \ is by jinja2, when its already a 3 element list. example of dynamic list with\_items: {{"[1,2]|union( condition|ternary(['stuff'], ))"}} it uses union to add elements from either list with 'stuff' or empty list, which leaves the original 'unchanged' ---
**Author:** ![Marc\_Abramowitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a5b964/32.png) [@Marc\_Abramowitz](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Marc_Abramowitz)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2015, 9:34pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-make-an-item-in-with-items-conditional/19992/9 "2015-12-11T21:34:29Z")
Ah, that’s clever. Probably too clever for me to want to use on my colleagues, but clever nonetheless. That could be an example if anyone ever writes a book called the “The Little Ansibler” in the style of “The Little Schemer”. 🙂