ansible empty dictionary conditional

Question

I had an error when I run this code:

- set_fact:
    my_var: "{{ my_var|default({}) | combine( {item.key: item.value} ) | default({}) }}"
    with_dict: "{{ my_dict }}"
    when: my_id in authorised[item.key]

FAILED! => {"failed": true, "msg": "The conditional check 'my_id in authorises[item.key]' failed. The error was: error while evaluating conditional (my_id in authorised[item.key]): Unable to look up a name or access an attribute in template string ({% if my_id in authorised[item.key] %} True {% else %} False {% endif %}).\nMake sure your variable name does not contain invalid characters like '-': argument of type 'StrictUndefined' is not iterable\n\nThe error appears to have been in '': but may\nbe elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.\n\nThe offending line appears to be:...

my_id is a global variable and authorised is an empty dictionary (authorised: {} )

is there a way to add a conditional to skip the tasks when authorised is an empty dictionary. I have just tried

when: authorised is defined
when: authorised

but it doesn't work. any suggestions?

https://stackoverflow.com/a/19494177/20267 - `authorised|length >0` maybe? — Zoredache, Jan 18 '19 at 22:01

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 10 '19 at 23:15

I'm hoping you figured this out on your own, but the issue is that the with and when clauses are improperly indented. As written, they are attributes of the module not a loop and a conditional on the task.

Corrected:

- set_fact:
    my_var: "{{ my_var|default({}) | combine( {item.key: item.value} ) | default({}) }}"
  with_dict: "{{ my_dict }}"
  when: my_id in authorised[item.key]

ansible empty dictionary conditional

1 Answers1