# with\_items combined with with\_first\_file ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [January 13, 2014, 1:18pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/with-items-combined-with-with-first-file/14329 "2014-01-13T13:18:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![martin1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3be4f8/32.png) [@martin1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/martin1)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 1:18pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/with-items-combined-with-with-first-file/14329/1 "2014-01-13T13:18:37Z")
I’ve been looking for a solutions for this, but I can’t seem to figure it out. Here is what I want to do: I’m writing a playbook to manage a number of DNS servers. I have a list of zones in my vars file, like so: list\_of\_zones: - [a.com](http://a.com) - [b.com](http://b.com) - [c.com](http://c.com) etc… I then have a dir with each zone file in it: zones/a.com.db zones/b.com.db etc… However, for some of the zones, I just want to use a default zone file. So basically, what I would like to do is something like this: - name: Copy zone files copy: src=zones/{{ item }} dest=/var/named/zones/{{ item }} with\_first\_file: - path/to/zones/{{ item }}.db - path/to/zones/default.db with\_items: - list\_of\_zones This however does not work. I tried to split out the copy part and with\_first\_file to a different file in the playbook and include it, passing the zone as a var, but I then got a warning that using with\_items together with include was not recommended and that it was going to be deprecated. I’m a bit lost how to solve this. One option would of course be to extend my zones var to include the name of the zone file as well, but I would like to make this as dynamic as possible. Any ideas are welcome. Thanks, /Martin ---
**Author:** ![Serge\_van\_Ginderacht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@Serge\_van\_Ginderacht](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Serge_van_Ginderacht)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 9:53pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/with-items-combined-with-with-first-file/14329/2 "2014-01-13T21:53:25Z")
Something like this might work: ​​ - name: Copy zone files   copy: src={{ ​lookup('first\_found', ['path/to/zones/' + ​ item ​ + '.db' ​ ​, 'path/to/zones/default + '.db'])​ }} dest=/var/named/zones/{{ item }}   with\_items:     - list\_of\_zones ​Serge​ ---
**Author:** ![martin1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3be4f8/32.png) [@martin1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/martin1)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2014, 8:34am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/with-items-combined-with-with-first-file/14329/3 "2014-01-14T08:34:37Z")
Hi Serge, This worked great. I didn’t realize that you could use the with\_\* functions with lookup(), now things makes more sense. Thank you! Best regards, /Martin ---
**Author:** ![martin1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3be4f8/32.png) [@martin1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/martin1)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2014, 8:37am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/with-items-combined-with-with-first-file/14329/4 "2014-01-14T08:37:00Z")
Hi Serge, This worked great, thank you. I didn’t realize that you could use the with\_\* functions with lookup(), now things makes a lot more sense. Best regards, /Martin ---
**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:** [January 14, 2014, 3:16pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/with-items-combined-with-with-first-file/14329/5 "2014-01-14T15:16:01Z")
It’s not really intended that first\_found be used in this way, because it’s a plugin that returns lists to iterate on, as opposed to ‘file’. However, it is definitely something that will continue to work. It just wouldn’t make sense using with\_items with, say, ‘items’ in the lookup, for that, go to things like ‘with\_nested’. ---
**Author:** ![Klokkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Klokkie](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Klokkie)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 6:54am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/with-items-combined-with-with-first-file/14329/6 "2014-07-25T06:54:53Z")
Just out of curiosity, if not with lookup(‘first\_found’,…) how would you do … with\_items: itemlistvar with\_first\_found: - file1 - file2 - etc… Are you suggesting: with\_nested: - itemlistvar - lookup(‘first\_found’, … ) ---
**Author:** ![Klokkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Klokkie](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Klokkie)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 7:56am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/with-items-combined-with-with-first-file/14329/7 "2014-07-25T07:56:51Z")
I found that the inline lookup "src={{ ​lookup(‘first\_found’, [‘path/to/zones/’ + ​ item ​ - ‘.db’ ​ ​, 'path/to/zones/default + ‘.db’])​ }}" did not quite work for me. The following example did the trick (for me) tho. As an example: ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan1)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 7:20pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/with-items-combined-with-with-first-file/14329/8 "2014-07-25T19:20:20Z")
When you say something doesn’t work for you, please describe HOW it doesn’t work. It’s unclear if you hit a traceback that we need to deal with or what. But no, with\_first\_found is designed to implement inline loops, not to be used like that. Some lookup plugins are for simple strings, others provide iterators. I agree this is somewhat confusing but that’s why we show them seperately in the docs with appropriate-ish examples for each.