ansible.builtin.vars – Lookup templated value of variables

Note

This lookup plugin is part of ansible-core and included in all Ansible installations. In most cases, you can use the short plugin name vars even without specifying the collections: keyword. However, we recommend you use the FQCN for easy linking to the plugin documentation and to avoid conflicting with other collections that may have the same lookup plugin name.

New in version 2.5: of ansible.builtin

Synopsis

  • Retrieves the value of an Ansible variable. Note: Only returns top level variable names.

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

_terms

string / required

The variable names to look up.

default

string

What to return if a variable is undefined.

If no default is set, it will result in an error if any of the variables is undefined.

Examples

- name: Show value of 'variablename'
  debug: msg="{{ lookup('vars', 'variabl' + myvar) }}"
  vars:
    variablename: hello
    myvar: ename

- name: Show default empty since i dont have 'variablnotename'
  debug: msg="{{ lookup('vars', 'variabl' + myvar, default='')}}"
  vars:
    variablename: hello
    myvar: notename

- name: Produce an error since i dont have 'variablnotename'
  debug: msg="{{ lookup('vars', 'variabl' + myvar)}}"
  ignore_errors: True
  vars:
    variablename: hello
    myvar: notename

- name: find several related variables
  debug: msg="{{ lookup('vars', 'ansible_play_hosts', 'ansible_play_batch', 'ansible_play_hosts_all') }}"

- name: Access nested variables
  debug: msg="{{ lookup('vars', 'variabl' + myvar).sub_var }}"
  ignore_errors: True
  vars:
    variablename:
        sub_var: 12
    myvar: ename

- name: alternate way to find some 'prefixed vars' in loop
  debug: msg="{{ lookup('vars', 'ansible_play_' + item) }}"
  loop:
    - hosts
    - batch
    - hosts_all

Return Values

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this lookup:

Key

Description

_value

list / elements=any

value of the variables requested.

Returned: success

Authors

  • Ansible Core Team