Multi-conditional when statements

[John Petro]

Good Morning Everyone!!

running into a difference of opinion between some coworkers, and I was brought in to offer my opinion as SME. 

Basically there are two different "when" statements that are being used...  What I am wondering is, what's the difference between them other than maybe readability/syntax....  I can't seem to find what I am looking for when I do a search....

Case 1:

 when: >
    (                                                    
      ( condition 1 ) and
      ( condition 2 )
    )

Case 2:

when:

   - condition 1

   - condition 2

Any guidance you have about when you would use one method over the other would definitely help me out.  Thanks!!

--John

[Brian Coca]

First of all, both are valid ways of writing conditionals.

From the execution standpoint, the main difference is that the list
version will be evaluated in order, one at a time by Ansible passing
each item to Jinja. While the other one will be passed as one item
into Jinja. This creates a minor change in efficiency depending on the
amount of conditions and the likelyhood of failure, but for most cases
(less than 100 conditionals) I would consider it negligible.

From a practical standpoint, the 2nd form is easier to put into a
variable and compose 'ANDed' conditions by adding to a list, you only
need to ensure each condition's correctness, not the aggregated whole.
The first form on the other hand supports 'OR' conditions also.

In the end I would consider it a preference issue, though most Ansible
users are used to the 2nd form and might get confused by the first,
but that is only a consideration when/if sharing the content.

--
----------
Brian Coca (he/him/yo)

[John Petro]

Thanks Brian!  That totally makes sense, and I hadn't even thought about it that way.  Thanks for the help, it is very much appreciated.

--John

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