Variable indirection

Archives Ansible Project
1

Greetings.

I feel like I’ve done this before, but for some reason, I can’t figure it out.

I’ve got two hashes defined.

password_change:
cobbler: [ ebhpw ]

cougar: [ ehymowitz ]

password_groups:
ebhpw: ehymowitz

Then I’ve got a play.

  • name: eric testing 9
    debug:
    msg: “it worked!!! variable is {{password_change.cobbler}}”
    when:
  • password_change.cobbler is defined

This works:

TASK [eric testing 9]
ok: [gs-444-e10285] => {
“msg”: “it worked!!! variable is [u’ebhpw’]”
}

I don’t fully understand what the brackets and the u are for. But I think that’s getting in my way. Because now I’m trying to do this:

  • name: eric testing 9
    debug:
    msg: “it worked!!! variable is {{password_change.cobbler}}”
    when:
  • password_change.cobbler is defined
  • password_groups[password_change.cobbler] is defined

and it fails.

TASK [eric testing 9]
skipping: [gs-444-e10285]

So what am I missing? It knows what password_change.cobbler is (“ebhpw”) , and it knows what password_groups[ebhpw] is (“ehymowitz”), so why I can’t I properly test for the value of password_groups[password_change.cobbler] ?

Thanks.

–EbH

2

Greetings.

I feel like I've done this before, but for some reason, I can't figure it
out.

I've got two hashes defined.

password_change:
  cobbler: [ ebhpw ]
  cougar: [ ehymowitz ]

If you don't understand the brackets, why are you using them here?

password_groups:
  ebhpw: ehymowitz

Then I've got a play.

  - name: eric testing 9
    debug:
      msg: "it worked!!!! variable is {{password_change.cobbler}}"
    when:
      - password_change.cobbler is defined

This works:

TASK [eric testing 9]
ok: [gs-444-e10285] => {
    "msg": "it worked!!!! variable is [u'ebhpw']"
}

I don't fully understand what the brackets and the u are for.

List(array) in Ansible can be written in two ways.

myvar: ["one","two"]

or

myvar:
  - one
  - two

u is Pythons way of saying that the element in the list is unicode.

But I think
that's getting in my way. Because now I'm trying to do this:

Then you shouldn't use them in the first place.

  - name: eric testing 9
    debug:
      msg: "it worked!!!! variable is {{password_change.cobbler}}"
    when:
     - password_change.cobbler is defined
     - password_groups[password_change.cobbler] is defined

and it fails.

TASK [eric testing 9]
skipping: [gs-444-e10285]

So what am I missing? It knows what password_change.cobbler is ("ebhpw") ,
and it knows what password_groups[ebhpw] is ("ehymowitz"), so why I can't I
properly test for the value of password_groups[password_change.cobbler] ?

password_change.cobbler is not "ebhpw" it's list since you have the values between , but password_change.cobbler.0 does contain "ebhpw"

3

Thank you very much. That was the little push I needed. I think I've got it now.

--EbH