256 lines
9.2 KiB
ReStructuredText
256 lines
9.2 KiB
ReStructuredText
.. _complex_data_manipulation:
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Data manipulation
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#########################
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In many cases, you need to do some complex operation with your variables, while Ansible is not recommended as a data processing/manipulation tool, you can use the existing Jinja2 templating in conjunction with the many added Ansible filters, lookups and tests to do some very complex transformations.
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Let's start with a quick definition of each type of plugin:
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- lookups: Mainly used to query 'external data', in Ansible these were the primary part of loops using the ``with_<lookup>`` construct, but they can be used independently to return data for processing. They normally return a list due to their primary function in loops as mentioned previously. Used with the ``lookup`` or ``query`` Jinja2 operators.
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- filters: used to change/transform data, used with the ``|`` Jinja2 operator.
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- tests: used to validate data, used with the ``is`` Jinja2 operator.
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.. _note:
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* Some tests and filters are provided directly by Jinja2, so their availability depends on the Jinja2 version, not Ansible.
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.. _for_loops_or_list_comprehensions:
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Loops and list comprehensions
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=============================
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Most programming languages have loops (``for``, ``while``, and so on) and list comprehensions to do transformations on lists including lists of objects. Jinja2 has a few filters that provide this functionality: ``map``, ``select``, ``reject``, ``selectattr``, ``rejectattr``.
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- map: this is a basic for loop that just allows you to change every item in a list, using the 'attribute' keyword you can do the transformation based on attributes of the list elements.
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- select/reject: this is a for loop with a condition, that allows you to create a subset of a list that matches (or not) based on the result of the condition.
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- selectattr/rejectattr: very similar to the above but it uses a specific attribute of the list elements for the conditional statement.
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.. _exponential_backoff:
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Use a loop to create exponential backoff for retries/until.
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.. code-block:: yaml
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- name: retry ping 10 times with exponential backup delay
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ping:
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retries: 10
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delay: '{{item|int}}'
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loop: '{{ range(1, 10)|map('pow', 2) }}'
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.. _keys_from_dict_matching_list:
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Extract keys from a dictionary matching elements from a list
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------------------------------------------------------------
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The Python equivalent code would be:
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.. code-block:: python
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chains = [1, 2]
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for chain in chains:
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for config in chains_config[chain]['configs']:
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print(config['type'])
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There are several ways to do it in Ansible, this is just one example:
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.. code-block:: YAML+Jinja
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:emphasize-lines: 3
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:caption: Way to extract matching keys from a list of dictionaries
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tasks:
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- name: Show extracted list of keys from a list of dictionaries
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debug: msg="{{ chains | map('extract', chains_config) | map(attribute='configs') | flatten | map(attribute='type') | flatten }}"
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vars:
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chains: [1, 2]
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chains_config:
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1:
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foo: bar
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configs:
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- type: routed
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version: 0.1
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- type: bridged
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version: 0.2
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2:
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foo: baz
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configs:
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- type: routed
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version: 1.0
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- type: bridged
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version: 1.1
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.. code-block:: ansible-output
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:caption: Results of debug task, a list with the extracted keys
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ok: [localhost] => {
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"msg": [
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"routed",
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"bridged",
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"routed",
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"bridged"
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]
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}
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.. _find_mount_point:
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Find mount point
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----------------
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In this case, we want to find the mount point for a given path across our machines, since we already collect mount facts, we can use the following:
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.. code-block:: YAML+Jinja
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:caption: Use selectattr to filter mounts into list I can then sort and select the last from
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:emphasize-lines: 7
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- hosts: all
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gather_facts: True
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vars:
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path: /var/lib/cache
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tasks:
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- name: The mount point for {{path}}, found using the Ansible mount facts, [-1] is the same as the 'last' filter
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debug: msg="{{(ansible_facts.mounts | selectattr('mount', 'in', path) | list | sort(attribute='mount'))[-1]['mount']}}"
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Omit elements from a list
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-------------------------
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The special ``omit`` variable ONLY works with module options, but we can still use it in other ways as an identifier to tailor a list of elements:
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.. code-block:: YAML+Jinja
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:caption: Inline list filtering when feeding a module option
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:emphasize-lines: 3, 7
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- name: enable a list of Windows features, by name
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set_fact:
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win_feature_list: "{{ namestuff | reject('equalto', omit) | list }}"
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vars:
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namestuff:
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- "{{ (fs_installed_smb_v1 | default(False)) | ternary(omit, 'FS-SMB1') }}"
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- "foo"
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- "bar"
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Another way is to avoid adding elements to the list in the first place, so you can just use it directly:
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.. code-block:: YAML+Jinja
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:caption: Using set_fact in a loop to increment a list conditionally
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:emphasize-lines: 3, 4, 6
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- name: build unique list with some items conditionally omitted
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set_fact:
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namestuff: ' {{ (namestuff | default([])) | union([item]) }}'
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when: item != omit
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loop:
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- "{{ (fs_installed_smb_v1 | default(False)) | ternary(omit, 'FS-SMB1') }}"
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- "foo"
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- "bar"
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.. _complex_type_transformations:
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Complex Type transformations
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=============================
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Jinja provides filters for simple data type transformations (``int``, ``bool``, and so on), but when you want to transform data structures things are not as easy.
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You can use loops and list comprehensions as shown above to help, also other filters and lookups can be chained and leveraged to achieve more complex transformations.
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.. _create_dictionary_from_list:
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Create dictionary from list
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---------------------------
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In most languages it is easy to create a dictionary (a.k.a. map/associative array/hash and so on) from a list of pairs, in Ansible there are a couple of ways to do it and the best one for you might depend on the source of your data.
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These example produces ``{"a": "b", "c": "d"}``
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.. code-block:: YAML+Jinja
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:caption: Simple list to dict by assuming the list is [key, value , key, value, ...]
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vars:
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single_list: [ 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd' ]
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mydict: "{{ dict(single_list) | slice(2) | list }}"
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.. code-block:: YAML+Jinja
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:caption: It is simpler when we have a list of pairs:
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vars:
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list_of_pairs: [ ['a', 'b'], ['c', 'd'] ]
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mydict: "{{ dict(list_of_pairs) }}"
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Both end up being the same thing, with the ``slice(2) | list`` transforming ``single_list`` to the same structure as ``list_of_pairs``.
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A bit more complex, using ``set_fact`` and a ``loop`` to create/update a dictionary with key value pairs from 2 lists:
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.. code-block:: YAML+Jinja
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:caption: Using set_fact to create a dictionary from a set of lists
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:emphasize-lines: 3, 4
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- name: Uses 'combine' to update the dictionary and 'zip' to make pairs of both lists
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set_fact:
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mydict: "{{ mydict | default({}) | combine({item[0]: item[1]}) }}"
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loop: "{{ (keys | zip(values)) | list }}"
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vars:
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keys:
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- foo
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- var
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- bar
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values:
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- a
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- b
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- c
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This results in ``{"foo": "a", "var": "b", "bar": "c"}``.
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You can even combine these simple examples with other filters and lookups to create a dictionary dynamically by matching patterns to variable names:
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.. code-block:: YAML+Jinja
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:caption: Using 'vars' to define dictionary from a set of lists without needing a task
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vars:
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myvarnames: "{{ q('varnames', '^my') }}"
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mydict: "{{ dict(myvarnames | zip(q('vars', *myvarnames))) }}"
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A quick explanation, since there is a lot to unpack from these two lines:
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- The ``varnames`` lookup returns a list of variables that match "begin with ``my``".
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- Then feeding the list from the previous step into the ``vars`` lookup to get the list of values.
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The ``*`` is used to 'dereference the list' (a pythonism that works in Jinja), otherwise it would take the list as a single argument.
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- Both lists get passed to the ``zip`` filter to pair them off into a unified list (key, value, key2, value2, ...).
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- The dict function then takes this 'list of pairs' to create the dictionary.
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An example on how to use facts to find a host's data that meets condition X:
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.. code-block:: YAML+Jinja
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vars:
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uptime_of_host_most_recently_rebooted: "{{ansible_play_hosts_all | map('extract', hostvars, 'ansible_uptime_seconds') | sort | first}}"
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Using an example from @zoradache on reddit, to show the 'uptime in days/hours/minutes' (assumes facts where gathered).
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https://www.reddit.com/r/ansible/comments/gj5a93/trying_to_get_uptime_from_seconds/fqj2qr3/
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.. code-block:: YAML+Jinja
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- debug:
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msg: Timedelta {{ now() - now().fromtimestamp(now(fmt='%s') | int - ansible_uptime_seconds) }}
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.. seealso::
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:doc:`playbooks_filters`
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Jinja2 filters included with Ansible
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:doc:`playbooks_tests`
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Jinja2 tests included with Ansible
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`Jinja2 Docs <https://jinja.palletsprojects.com/>`_
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Jinja2 documentation, includes lists for core filters and tests
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