# newbie question about conditionals/variables in j2

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/newbie-question-about-conditionals-variables-in-j2/12401>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Tags:** ansible-project\
**Created:** [February 22, 2013, 5:22am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/newbie-question-about-conditionals-variables-in-j2/12401 "2013-02-22T05:22:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\
**Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 5:22am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/newbie-question-about-conditionals-variables-in-j2/12401/1 "2013-02-22T05:22:25Z")

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> Desired result:  
> Servers in [someservers] get a template that parses out to:  
> foo=barn  
> foo=house
> 
> But I can't figure out the right syntax based on jinja or ansible  
> docs/examples....  
> Can anyone help a newbie out?

You should store your variables in group\_vars files as shown in  
[https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/docsite/rst/bestpractices.rst](https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/docsite/rst/bestpractices.rst)  
as that will let you store lists instead of just strings.

The INI file variables don't allow complex variables but group\_vars does.