Ansible: default filter does not resolve variables in Ansible 1.8.2

[jiwong]

Issue Type:

Bug Report

Ansible Version:

1.8.2

Environment:

RHEL 5

Summary:

The default filter does not resolve variables defined in the inventory.

For example, if I have defined in my inventory file the following variable:

app_install_dir=/test

My playbook has this and "somevariable" is not defined:

dest_dir="{{ somevariable | default('{{app_install_dir}}/DATA') }}"

When running the playbook, the default fails to resolve "app_install_dir"

This used to work on Ansible 1.7.1.

Steps To Reproduce:

1) Define a variable in the inventory called called "test_directory=/tmp/testdir"
2) In the playbook, have a task to create a directory defined by variable dest={{ undefined_variable | default('{{test_directory}}') }}
3) After running the playbook, it fails to resolve the value of "test_directory"

Expected Results:

The default filter should be able to resolve variables

Actual Results:

The default filter is not resolving variables defined in inventory

[bcoca]

Possible Misunderstanding

Hi!

Thanks very much for your submission to Ansible. It sincerely means a lot to us.

We believe the ticket you have filed is being somewhat misunderstood, as one thing works a little differently than stated.

dest={{ undefined_variable | default('{{test_directory}}') }}

is an invalid expression , you cannot nest {{ }}, what you probably want is the following:

dest={{ undefined_variable | default(test_directory) }}

In the future, this might be a topic more well suited for the user list, which you can also post here if you'd like some more help with the above.

• https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ansible-project

Thank you once again for this and your interest in Ansible!

[glatapoui]

@bcoca: Good to know, but does that mean we cannot concatenate a variable and a literal in a default ? Something like: dest={{ undefined_variable | default('{{test_directory}}/subdir') }} (but not invalid ;-)

[bcoca]

I don't normally see posts in closed tickets but an irc user pinged me on this:
dest={{ undefined_variable | default(test_directory + '/subdir') }}