when and with on same variable

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1

  • debug: msg=“test for items” # skip because condition is not fullfiled
    when: groups.unexisting is defined

  • debug: msg=“test for items”
    when: groups.unexisting is defined

with_items: unexisting #failed here with with_items expects a list or a set

2
  • debug: msg=“test for items”
    when: groups.unexisting is defined

with_items: groups.unexisting #might work if you reference the same variable?

3

when gets evaluated INSIDE the with loop, so it cannot condition the
executing of with, this is done so you can do when: item == 'blah' for
example to condition each iteration in the loop.

to deal with undeinfed with_ vars, do the following:

with_ : "{{ myvar|default()}}"

^ the empty will skip the task as there is nothing to loop over.

some times you need more complex conditions, ternary filter can help:

with_ : "{{ unexisting is defined|ternary( groups['unexisting'], ) }}"