Ansible loop over dictionaries

Question

I was trying to loop over dictionaries and I referred the following thread but it kept on failing:

How to loop over this dictionary in Ansible?

Following is my play book:

- hosts: server_hosts
  tasks:
    - name: Include dictionary data
      include_vars:
        file:  vars/input_vars.yaml
    - name: Show info field from data.yml
      debug:
        msg: "Id: {{ input_data[item]['version'] }} - info: {{ input_data[item]['name'] }}"
      with_items: "{{ input_data.keys() }}"

Following is my dictionary vars/input_vars.yaml file:

input_data:

   item_1:

     name: "test1"

     version: "18.3"

   item_2:

     name: "test2"

     version: "18.3"
   item_3:

     name: "test3"

     version: "18.3"

When I executed the playbook, it fails with following error:

fatal: [192.168.16.120]: FAILED! => {
    "ansible_facts": {},
    "ansible_included_var_files": [],
    "changed": false,
    "message": "Syntax Error while loading YAML.\n  mapping values are not allowed here\n\nThe error appears to have been in '/git_projects/base/vars/input_vars.yaml': line 2, column 12, but may\nbe elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.\n\nThe offending line appears to be:\n\n----\n input_data:\n           ^ here\n"
}

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 08 '19 at 00:22

I have tested it and it works, I have removed extra newlines from input_vars.yaml

➜  ~  cat input_vars.yaml 
input_data:
   item_1:
     name: "test1"
     version: "18.3"
   item_2:
     name: "test2"
     version: "18.3"
   item_3:
     name: "test3"
     version: "18.3"

➜  ~  cat example.yml 
---
- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
    - name: Include dictionary data
      include_vars:
        file: input_vars.yaml
    - name: Show info field from data.yml
      debug:
        msg: "Id: {{ input_data[item]['version'] }} - info: {{ input_data[item]['name'] }}"
      with_items: "{{ input_data.keys() }}"

Output

➜  ~  ansible-playbook example.yml                                                                                                      
 [WARNING]: Unable to parse /etc/ansible/hosts as an inventory source                                                                   

 [WARNING]: No inventory was parsed, only implicit localhost is available                                                               

 [WARNING]: provided hosts list is empty, only localhost is available. Note that the implicit localhost does not match 'all'            


PLAY [localhost] ***********************************************************************************************************************

TASK [Gathering Facts] *****************************************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost]                                                                                                                         

TASK [Include dictionary data] *********************************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost]                                                                                                                         

TASK [Show info field from data.yml] ***************************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => (item=item_2) => {
    "msg": "Id: 18.3 - info: test2"
}
ok: [localhost] => (item=item_3) => {
    "msg": "Id: 18.3 - info: test3"
}
ok: [localhost] => (item=item_1) => {
    "msg": "Id: 18.3 - info: test1"
}

PLAY RECAP *****************************************************************************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=3    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0

Ansible loop over dictionaries

Following is my dictionary vars/input_vars.yaml file:

1 Answers1