Problem with includes in templates

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1

Hi,

i’m working with ansible 1.5 and encounter a problem when working with includes in templates.

In one template file i have this code snippet:
{% for group in group_names %}
{% include “debug_include.j2” with context %}
{% endfor %}

In the included template ‘debug_include.j2’ i have this code:
This is the included Template. The current group is {{group}}

The documentation claims that included templates have the same variable context as the main file.
So i would expect to see something like:
This is the included Template. The current group is mailserver

Instead i get an error on the commandline when executing this play:
TASK: [common-linux | dump all variables] *************************************
fatal: [ltesthost] => {‘msg’: “One or more undefined variables: ‘group’ is undefined”, ‘failed’: True}
fatal: [testhost] => {‘msg’: “One or more undefined variables: ‘group’ is undefined”, ‘failed’: True}

FATAL: all hosts have already failed – aborting

Did i miss somthing here ?

2

Yep, this is a known thing, Jinja2 includes (however those work) aren’t well tolerated in Ansible right now.

History in github indicates these used to work – so I’d welcome a ticket. A pull request to add them would be even better.

(They are not very widely used/wanted at all, so it may take a while to get to this).

3

FWIW jinja2/template includes are working for me in 1.5 with a few notes;

  • context is automatically inherited, no need to pass with context

  • {% include filename %} only accepts relative paths for filename. eg.

  • {% include “inc/filename.j2” %} works,
  • {% include “/etc/ansible/templates/inc/filename.j2” %} does not

Here’s an example;

Main template;
https://github.com/iceburg-net/ansible-pcd/blob/master/roles/applications/apache_sites/templates/virtualhost_http.j2

Included template;
https://github.com/iceburg-net/ansible-pcd/blob/master/roles/applications/apache_sites/templates/includes/wordpress-3.j2

[ ps the pcd project is in an embarrassing state && needs a reorg/refactor :slight_smile: ]