Variable expansion in include_vars

[Uwe Sauter]

Hi,

I'm trying to keep my playbooks and related var files portable. Currently I'm stuck with the following:

### input.yaml ###
---
base: '/exports'
image: '{{ base }}/image'
config: '{{ base }}/config'
################

### playbook ###
---
- hosts: localhost
connection: local
gather_facts: false
tasks:
- include_vars:
file: input.yaml
name: input

- debug: var=input
#################

### output ###
$ ansible-playbook test.yaml

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

TASK [include_vars] ************************************************************
ok: [localhost]

TASK [debug] *******************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => {
"input": "VARIABLE IS NOT DEFINED!"
}

PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
localhost : ok=2 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0
##############

If I change input.yaml to

#######
---
base: '/exports'
image: '/exports/image'
config: '/exports/config'
#######

it gets loaded correctly

#######
$ ansible-playbook test.yaml

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

TASK [include_vars] ************************************************************
ok: [localhost]

TASK [debug] *******************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => {
"input": {
"base": "/exports",
"config": "/exports/config",
"image": "/exports/image"
}
}

PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
localhost : ok=2 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0
#######

but I loose portability.

I read somewhere on the net that Ansible doesn't support variable expansion in include_vars tasks. Any suggestions on
how to achieve what I'm trying to do?

What's the reasoning behind Ansible not doing variable expansion on include_vars?


Regards,

Uwe