community.general.merge_variables lookup – merge variables whose names match a given pattern

Note

This lookup plugin is part of the community.general collection (version 8.6.7).

You might already have this collection installed if you are using the ansible package. It is not included in ansible-core. To check whether it is installed, run ansible-galaxy collection list.

To install it, use: ansible-galaxy collection install community.general.

To use it in a playbook, specify: community.general.merge_variables.

New in community.general 6.5.0

Synopsis

  • This lookup returns the merged result of all variables in scope that match the given prefixes, suffixes, or regular expressions, optionally.

Terms

Parameter

Comments

Terms

list / elements=string / required

Depending on the value of pattern_type, this is a list of prefixes, suffixes, or regular expressions that will be used to match all variables that should be merged.

Keyword parameters

This describes keyword parameters of the lookup. These are the values key1=value1, key2=value2 and so on in the following examples: lookup('community.general.merge_variables', key1=value1, key2=value2, ...) and query('community.general.merge_variables', key1=value1, key2=value2, ...)

Parameter

Comments

groups

list / elements=string

added in community.general 8.5.0

Search for variables accross hosts that belong to the given groups. This allows to collect configuration pieces accross different hosts (for example a service on a host with its database on another host).

initial_value

any

An initial value to start with.

override

string

Return an error, print a warning or ignore it when a key will be overwritten.

The default behavior error makes the plugin fail when a key would be overwritten.

When warn and ignore are used, note that it is important to know that the variables are sorted by name before being merged. Keys for later variables in this order will overwrite keys of the same name for variables earlier in this order. To avoid potential confusion, better use override=error whenever possible.

Choices:

  • "error" ← (default)

  • "warn"

  • "ignore"

Configuration:

pattern_type

string

Change the way of searching for the specified pattern.

Choices:

  • "prefix"

  • "suffix"

  • "regex" ← (default)

Configuration:

Notes

Note

  • When keyword and positional parameters are used together, positional parameters must be listed before keyword parameters: lookup('community.general.merge_variables', term1, term2, key1=value1, key2=value2) and query('community.general.merge_variables', term1, term2, key1=value1, key2=value2)

Examples

# Some example variables, they can be defined anywhere as long as they are in scope
test_init_list:
  - "list init item 1"
  - "list init item 2"

testa__test_list:
  - "test a item 1"

testb__test_list:
  - "test b item 1"

testa__test_dict:
  ports:
    - 1

testb__test_dict:
  ports:
    - 3


# Merge variables that end with '__test_dict' and store the result in a variable 'example_a'
example_a: "{{ lookup('community.general.merge_variables', '__test_dict', pattern_type='suffix') }}"

# The variable example_a now contains:
# ports:
#   - 1
#   - 3


# Merge variables that match the '^.+__test_list$' regular expression, starting with an initial value and store the
# result in a variable 'example_b'
example_b: "{{ lookup('community.general.merge_variables', '^.+__test_list$', initial_value=test_init_list) }}"

# The variable example_b now contains:
#   - "list init item 1"
#   - "list init item 2"
#   - "test a item 1"
#   - "test b item 1"

Return Value

Key

Description

Return value

any

In case the search matches list items, a list will be returned. In case the search matches dicts, a dict will be returned.

Returned: success

Authors

  • Roy Lenferink (@rlenferink)

  • Mark Ettema (@m-a-r-k-e)

  • Alexander Petrenz (@alpex8)

Hint

Configuration entries for each entry type have a low to high priority order. For example, a variable that is lower in the list will override a variable that is higher up.