# Variable overwriting **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [June 12, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/variable-overwriting/11609 "2012-06-12T20:04:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Brad\_Olson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Brad\_Olson](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brad_Olson)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/variable-overwriting/11609/1 "2012-06-12T20:04:01Z")
Michael, What’s the intended behavior about variable re-definition? Will later vars\_files overwrite earlier ones? I guess that leads to a best practice problem. Use case is variable for a webserver, web app, and configuration, which has minor tweaks for a development server. My thought was a standard vars\_file read by production, qa, and dev, then another vars\_file with the dev server overrides. Thanks, –Brad ---
**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:** [June 12, 2012, 8:12pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/variable-overwriting/11609/2 "2012-06-12T20:12:11Z")
> Michael, > > What’s the intended behavior about variable re-definition? Will later vars\_files overwrite earlier ones? Yes. It’s an ordered list. > I guess that leads to a best practice problem. Use case is variable for a webserver, web app, and configuration, which has minor tweaks for a development server. My thought was a standard vars\_file read by production, qa, and dev, then another vars\_file with the dev server overrides. You could still do that. ---
**Author:** ![Brad\_Olson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Brad\_Olson](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brad_Olson)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 4:29pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/variable-overwriting/11609/3 "2012-06-13T16:29:30Z")
Great, thanks for confirming that!