# With\_items /pass var - string. **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [June 2, 2020, 3:55pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/with-items-pass-var-string/33074 "2020-06-02T15:55:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Adam\_McGill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a9adbd/32.png) [@Adam\_McGill](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Adam_McGill)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2020, 3:55pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/with-items-pass-var-string/33074/1 "2020-06-02T15:55:28Z")
I would like to take the value of the var and pass it into with\_items and I am running into an issue / error, how can i pass just the value into with\_items. If i hardcode and put the value with\_items: {{ small2019 }} in there are no issues. Using include\_vars / file which has the data, want to pass value into with items to get results. Result: ---
**Author:** ![racke](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/racke/32/4767_2.png) [@racke](https://forum.ansible.com/u/racke)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2020, 7:06pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/with-items-pass-var-string/33074/2 "2020-06-02T19:06:00Z")
> I would like to take the value of the var and pass it into with\_items and I am running into an issue / error, how can i > pass just the value into with\_items. If i hardcode and put the value with\_items: {{ small2019 }} in there are no > issues. Using include\_vars / file which has the data, want to pass value into with items to get results. Why did you wrap the variable in single quotes? This makes it a literal string instead of the contents of the variable ... Regards           Racke ---
**Author:** ![Adam\_McGill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a9adbd/32.png) [@Adam\_McGill](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Adam_McGill)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2020, 7:36pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/with-items-pass-var-string/33074/3 "2020-06-02T19:36:04Z")
If i remove the single quotes, in the debug i see it pull the information correctly from the include\_vars. If I use the same with\_items: “{{ vm\_config }}” in the task i get this. “msg”: "The task includes an option with an undefined variable. The error was: ‘ansible.utils.unsafe\_proxy.AnsibleUnsafeText object’ has no attribute ‘InstallMedia’\n\nThe error appears to be in ---
**Author:** ![Adam\_McGill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a9adbd/32.png) [@Adam\_McGill](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Adam_McGill)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2020, 7:39pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/with-items-pass-var-string/33074/4 "2020-06-02T19:39:41Z")
Basically i have a include\_vars file that has all my configs, want with\_items to only pull back the required config. example / include\_vars: ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Visser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d9b06d/32.png) [@Dick\_Visser](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Dick_Visser)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2020, 1:09pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/with-items-pass-var-string/33074/5 "2020-06-03T13:09:08Z")
All the looping constructs (with\_items etc) assume you have some data structure that is iterable, ie. a list, a dict, etc. > From your vars file it seems (guessing here) that you want to iterate over multiple independent variables. If that is the case, I would suggest restructuring those multiple vars to one iterable var. This will give you a lot more flexibility elsewhere in your deployment as well. For example:     allsizes:       - config: "DC2019"         name: small2019         InstallMedia:           Source: "\\\\someshare\\"           SourceVHDX: "Virtual Hard Disks\\DC2019.vhdx"           Destination: "C:\\ISOs\\MDT\\DC2019\\"       - config: "DC2019"         name: large2019         InstallMedia:           Source: "\\\\someshare\\"           SourceVHDX: "Virtual Hard Disks\\DC2019.vhdx"           Destination: "C:\\ISOs\\MDT\\DC2019\\" (Note that apart from the name (which used to be your variable name), the dicts are exactly the same - I guess this is just example data and in reality these actually differ) If this is now what you want, then explain better what you do want. I would help if you provide real world examples. ---
**Author:** ![Adam\_McGill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a9adbd/32.png) [@Adam\_McGill](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Adam_McGill)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2020, 7:22pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/with-items-pass-var-string/33074/6 "2020-06-05T19:22:23Z")
Thanks for the reply Dick. Basically i want to have a include file/vars that will hold configuration items for each config. Using with\_items would like to call out to that config file/include vars and pull only the data associated to its name. The information i provided, yes was an example and I think your reply of the restructuring could help. Based on using that restructure using with\_items is going to loop in all the information in the config/include file. So i could narrow down my list in within the with\_items with a passed extra vars variable ( {{ allsizes.{{ vm\_config }} }} ? Going to test out / restructure this afternoon , sorry for the delay in response, appreciate the feedback. Adam