Strange behavior in group_by module with 'with_items'

[Joost Cassee]

Hi,

I have a couple of hosts that have a 'profiles' variable that contains a list of, well, profiles that I want to apply. I want to use group_by to turn those into groups. However, it is not working. (I am doing this on the current devel branch, by the way.)

This test case isolates the issue:

hosts
-----
host1
host2

test.yml
--------
- hosts: all
  connection: local
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
  - debug: var=test_items
  - group_by: key=host_{{ item }}
    with_items: test_items
  - debug: var=group_names
  vars:
    test_items:
    - "{{ inventory_hostname }}"

$ ansible-playbook test.yml -i hosts

PLAY [all] ********************************************************************

TASK: [debug var=test_items] **************************************************
ok: [host2] => {
    "test_items": [
        "host2"
    ]
}
ok: [host1] => {
    "test_items": [
        "host1"
    ]
}

TASK: [group_by key=host_{{item}}] ********************************************
changed: [host1] => (item=host1)

TASK: [debug var=group_names] *************************************************
ok: [host1] => {
    "group_names": [
        "host_host1",
        "ungrouped"
    ]
}
ok: [host2] => {
    "group_names": [
        "host_host1",
        "ungrouped"
    ]
}

PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************
host1                      : ok=3    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0  
host2                      : ok=3    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0  

Notice how both hosts are in group 'host_host1', even host2.

Is this expected behavior (i.e. does group_by not work with with_items) or should I create an issue on GitHub?

Regards,
Joost

[Michael DeHaan]

I'm not positive group_by can be used with with_items.

I think we may have proposed making this raise an error, which seems easy to do if this is the case.

If you feel you can boil this down to a minimal reproducer example please file a bug in github and we can take a look.   I'd probably just do it with a hard coded list for starters, just to make sure variables have nothing to do with it (as it would provide more information if they did).

Sidenote - it's very unusual to put variables below your tasks section.  I'd suggest not doing that as it makes playbooks less readable.

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[Adam Morris]

This seems to be doing what you are telling it to do to me.

Pseudocode:

For every host in the inventory
For every host-inventoryname
Add the host to the host-inventoryname group.

The one part I'm not sure about is whether host-inventoryname is being defined once and they are only being put in one group or if they are being put in multiple groups each.

Adam

[Joost Cassee]

2014-05-23 14:38 GMT+02:00 Michael DeHaan <mic...@ansible.com>:
> I'm not positive group_by can be used with with_items.
>
> I think we may have proposed making this raise an error, which seems easy to
> do if this is the case.

Well, using a fixed list does work, adding every item as a group. It's
when a fact (host-specific variable) is used that a problem occurs:
the value for the first host is used for all hosts.

> If you feel you can boil this down to a minimal reproducer example please
> file a bug in github and we can take a look. I'd probably just do it with
> a hard coded list for starters, just to make sure variables have nothing to
> do with it (as it would provide more information if they did).

I have removed the test_items variable and submitted an issue:
https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/7540

> Sidenote - it's very unusual to put variables below your tasks section. I'd
> suggest not doing that as it makes playbooks less readable.

Yeah, that was probably because I went through stripped down a role to
a playbook in alphabetical order. :-)

2014-05-23 16:19 GMT+02:00 Adam Morris <zwac...@gmail.com>:
> This seems to be doing what you are telling it to do to me.
>

> [...]

>
> The one part I'm not sure about is whether host-inventoryname is being defined once and they are only being put in one group or if they are being put in multiple groups each.

That is my point. I would expect every host to be put in their own
group. If you us a fact but not with_items it works. I have included
an example in the issue.

Regards,
Joost

--
Joost Cassee
http://joost.cassee.net

[Michael DeHaan]

"It's
when a fact (host-specific variable) is used that a problem occurs:
the value for the first host is used for all hosts."

group_by was definitely intended to work with fact based variables, in fact, this is the most common pattern:

- group_by: key=os-{{ ansible_os_family }}

We'll have to look into the looping scope question.

Ticket is filed here for those interested:  https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/7540

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