How to use a variable within a variable

[Joe Levis]

I have a use case where I need to use a variable within a variable. I'm sure it's doable, but I'm new to Ansible syntax and tried different ways with no success.

Here's the scenario:

1) Playbook uses variable {{ redis_password.qa }} defined in /vars/main.yml:

---

redis_password:

  qa: qa123

  production: prod123

2) We're also passing a variable {{ app_env }} on the command line when running the Playbook:

--extra-vars "app_env=qa"

3) Now, I need to use the variable passed on command line to get the variable from /vars/main.yml:

{{ redis_password.{{ app_env }} }}

Any way to do this?

[Josh Smift]

JL> 3) Now, I need to use the variable passed on command line to get the
JL> variable from /vars/main.yml:
JL> {{ redis_password.{{ app_env }} }}

Yep, just the syntax is wrong. Two things:

(1) The {{ and }} marks just say "start parsing Jinja", so you don't ever
need to nest them.

(2) The dotted notation doesn't let you specify what's a literal and
what's a variable. (I think this is confusing, so I personally avoid
it, even though it does have the advantage of being pleasantly more
concise than brackets and quote marks.)

Try

{{ redis_password[app_env] }}

and see if that works. (If you wanted the literal string "app_env", you'd do

{{ redis_password['app_env'] }}

instead.)

-Josh (j...@care.com)



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[Joe Levis]

SUCCESS!

Wow, that was it. Thanks man. I had tried {{ redis_password.[app_env] }} - so close!

And thank you for clarifying the use of jinja.

-Joe