Packer: ami_users as array of strings

[ExecPcs]

• Packer v0.10.1
• CentOS Linux release 7.2.1511 (Core)
• Log file
• When im trying insert array of ami_users I get error "_* variable ami_users: '' expected type 'string', got unconvertible type '[]interface {}'_"

[cbednarski]

Thanks for the report. This does not seem to be working as documented.

As a workaround you can try to specify this as a comma-delimited string, which I think will be converted into a list internally. Not sure if you'll run into the same problem, though, depending on where the type coercion is failing.

[ExecPcs]

With comma-delimited string - working. Thanks!

[kwilczynski]

Easy to fix, I will have a look.

[madduci]

any news about this issue?

[rickard-von-essen]

This works as expected in 0.11.0.

[rickard-von-essen]

I can't find that this have been fixed and don't see that it have been broken in near time.

Please reopen if you can repro this with 0.11.0 and provide a full template to repro this.

[joshuaspence]

I think this problem still exists? Here is a template that can be used to reproduce:

{
  "variables": {
    "ami_users": []
  }
}

Running Packer on this template gives the following error:

Failed to parse template: 1 error(s) occurred:

* variable ami_users: '' expected type 'string', got unconvertible type '[]interface {}'

[rickard-von-essen]

@joshuaspence ~That's not the same error, and~ it's not a bug. Variables can't be arrays.

Try:

{
  "variables": { "ami_users": "123456789012,987654321098" },
  "builders": [
     {
       "type": "amazon-ebs",
       "ami_users": "{{ user `ami_users` }}"
     }
  ]
}

[joshuaspence]

What do you mean? The error message I got is exactly as in the original report. I thought that this issue was regarding the ability to specify ami_users as an array rather than as a comma-separated list.

[rickard-von-essen]

Sorry read a bit to quickly, nevertheless you have the solution above.

[jakub-bochenski]

I'm confused. Can I use an array of strings for this attribute or not?
The docs specify ami_users ([]string) but it seems it doesn't work

[azr]

Hey @jakub-bochenski, yes, you can set it to [] or ["xxx", "xxx"].

[hashibot[bot]]

I'm going to lock this issue because it has been closed for _30 days_ ⏳. This helps our maintainers find and focus on the active issues.

If you have found a problem that seems similar to this, please open a new issue and complete the issue template so we can capture all the details necessary to investigate further.