PuppetDB type casting wierdness

[Simon Murray]

Given a site.pp that looks like this:

define test_type (
  $value = [],
) {
  $type = inline_template('<%= @value.class %>')
  notify { "${title} => ${type}": }
}

@@test_type { $::fqdn:
  value => [ $::fqdn ],
}

Test_type <<||>>

I get the odd result when run on icinga:

Notice: icinga.angel.net => Array
Notice: puppet.angel.net => String

Seemingly when my type is collected from puppetdb, somewhere in the chain an implicit type cast occurs.  It only seems to occur with arrays containing a single element.

Kind of annoying in that I can't put type validation in the defined type and have to 'Array(@value)' in templates.  Can't seem to find any mention of this behaviour, any pointers?

DataCentred Limited registered in England and Wales no. 05611763

[Wyatt Alt]

You're encountering PDB-170 (https://tickets.puppetlabs.com/browse/PDB-170.)

It's a known bug, and last time I looked at it wasn't clear whether the
issue was Puppet or PDB, but I just tried it on Puppet 4.2.2/PuppetDB
3.1.0 and I can't reproduce:

https://gist.github.com/wkalt/83d8d8170d9f20aad331

so I'm thinking it may have been fixed on the Puppet side. What versions
are you running?

Wyatt

[Simon Murray]

Thanks Wyatt, my google fu is weak :)

I'm stuck on puppetserver 1.1.1 and puppetdb 2.3.7 for the time being in my dev environment.
I'll upgrade to the PC1 packages once I've got this current code deployed into production and see if it makes life easier.

Then begins the task of upgrading production...