# Proper escaping quotes and braces **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [October 31, 2013, 7:35am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/proper-escaping-quotes-and-braces/13811 "2013-10-31T07:35:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Anton\_Parkhomenko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/0ea827/32.png) [@Anton\_Parkhomenko](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Anton_Parkhomenko)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2013, 7:35am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/proper-escaping-quotes-and-braces/13811/1 "2013-10-31T07:35:44Z")
Hi, I can’t write a syntactically correct playbook. How it would be right to write following command: - name: test escaping command: mycommand subcommand --option=‘{“first-item”: 2}’ Can you give me advice? ---
**Author:** ![Brian\_Coca1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Brian\_Coca1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brian_Coca1)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/proper-escaping-quotes-and-braces/13811/2 "2013-10-31T14:48:02Z")
First, ansible version and error output would be helpful, but taking a guess try this: - name: test escaping   command: "mycommand subcommand --option={'first-item': 2}' " ---
**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:** [November 1, 2013, 12:08am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/proper-escaping-quotes-and-braces/13811/3 "2013-11-01T00:08:10Z")
Yep. When you encounter problems it is always suggested to paste whatever error you had. I’m guessing this is just the common “if you start a line or end a line with a quote, the whole thing must be quoted” which is one of the two gotchas on [http://ansibleworks.com/docs/YAMLSyntax.html](http://ansibleworks.com/docs/YAMLSyntax.html) Ansible in version 1.4 or later will share some syntax tips, but in either case the exception should indicate you had a YAML syntax error. ---
**Author:** ![Anton\_Parkhomenko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/0ea827/32.png) [@Anton\_Parkhomenko](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Anton_Parkhomenko)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 2:38pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/proper-escaping-quotes-and-braces/13811/4 "2013-11-02T14:38:19Z")
I’m sorry for not including debug output, I saw this error so many times that already thought that it’s pretty common. Ansible version is 1.3.3. The error was: ERROR: Syntax Error while loading YAML script, playbook.yml Note: The error may actually appear before this position: line 53, column 77 - name: test escaping command: mycommand subcommand --option="{‘‘first-item’’: 2}" ^ This actually shows that I have problems not with quotes and braces, but with colon. It’s one of number of non-working examples. It was solved by embracing colon with single quotes. And working solution is: - name: test escaping command: mycommand subcommand --option="{first-item’:'2}" I removed space after colon, and removed single quotes, but I want solution that includes them, so I’m consider question is still open. ---
**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:** [November 2, 2013, 3:05pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/proper-escaping-quotes-and-braces/13811/5 "2013-11-02T15:05:31Z")
This is the "you have a free colon in your output, you must quote the whole line, thing. So basically what Brian suggested above will take care of it. ---
**Author:** ![Anton\_Parkhomenko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/0ea827/32.png) [@Anton\_Parkhomenko](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Anton_Parkhomenko)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 3:27pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/proper-escaping-quotes-and-braces/13811/6 "2013-11-02T15:27:43Z")
Well, in that case I have syntactically correct YAML, but because Brian omitted outer single-quotes, it performs a wrong command. Verbose output: changed: [192.168.1.107] =\> {“changed”: true, “cmd”: [“mycommand”, “subcommand”, “–option={first-item:”, **“2}”**], “delta”: “0:00:00.162754”, “end”: “2013-11-02 15:08:57.654332”, “rc”: 0, “start”: “2013-11-02 15:08:57.491578”, “stderr”: “upload: invalid arguments”, “stdout”: “mycommand subcommand[OPTIONS]\n --help display help”} If I insert the outer quotes, the following error will appear: ERROR: Syntax Error while loading YAML script, playbook.yml Note: The error may actually appear before this position: line 53, column 73 - name: test escaping command: mycommand subcommand --option=“{‘first-item’: 2}”" ^ Anyway, if I’ve missing something, this “something” is definetely about YAML syntax and not about Ansible and I should ask it somewhere else. Especially that my problem is already solved in other way. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![kahlil.hodgson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9bd4f/32.png) [@kahlil.hodgson](https://forum.ansible.com/u/kahlil.hodgson)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2013, 6:23am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/proper-escaping-quotes-and-braces/13811/7 "2013-11-03T06:23:09Z")
Try using YAML “\>” quoting mechanism. This causes the block following the “\>” to be interpreted as a YAML scalar, and hence, ignores other YAML special characters like "{ " and ": " - name: test escaping command: \> mycommand subcommand --option=“{first-item: 2}” ---
**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:** [November 3, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/proper-escaping-quotes-and-braces/13811/8 "2013-11-03T16:46:37Z")
When you said you inserted outer quotes, the example you showed did not show any outer quotes at all. I mean quote the entire value. Alternatively, see what Kahil wrote. ---
**Author:** ![Serega\_Sheypak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7bcc69/32.png) [@Serega\_Sheypak](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Serega_Sheypak)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2015, 8:53am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/proper-escaping-quotes-and-braces/13811/9 "2015-04-30T08:53:07Z")
Hi, trying to execute task: - name: Create spark-metrics DB shell: curl -X POST http://{{ influxdb.host }}:{{ influxdb\_client\_port }}/db?u=root&p=root -d “{‘name’: ‘spark-metrics’}” Ansible dislikes “:” - name: Create spark-metrics DB shell: curl -X POST http://{{ influxdb.host }}:{{ influxdb\_client\_port }}/db?u=root&p=root -d “{‘name’: ‘spark-metrics’}” ^ We could be wrong, but this one looks like it might be an issue with missing quotes. Always quote template expression brackets when they start a value. For instance: with\_items: - {{ foo }} Should be written as: with\_items: - “{{ foo }}” ---
**Author:** ![Ulrich\_Hochholdinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/839c29/32.png) [@Ulrich\_Hochholdinger](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Ulrich_Hochholdinger)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2015, 9:18am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/proper-escaping-quotes-and-braces/13811/10 "2015-04-30T09:18:31Z")
Hi, Alternatively you can use the “\> notation” : shell: \> curl -X POST http://{{ influxdb.host }}:{{ influxdb\_client\_port }}/db?u=root&p=root -d “{‘name’: ‘spark-metrics’}” Cheers Ulli ---
**Author:** ![Serega\_Sheypak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7bcc69/32.png) [@Serega\_Sheypak](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Serega_Sheypak)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2015, 10:53am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/proper-escaping-quotes-and-braces/13811/11 "2015-04-30T10:53:42Z")
Here is working solution ```auto - name: Create spark-metrics DB uri: url: "http://{{ influxdb.host }}:{{ influxdb_client_port }}/db?u=root&p=root" method: POST body: "{\"name\": \"spark-metrics\"}" status_code: 201 ```