Creating a loop in ansible Play book - Error - ansible

Question

The Play book
---
- name: task 11
hosts: prod
vars_files:
- users_pass.yml
tasks:
- name: create group profs
group:
name: profs
state: present
- name: create users who have depart set as profs
user:
name: "{{ item.uname }}"
groups: "{{ item.department }}"
shell: /bin/bash
password: "{{ item.password | password_hash ('sha256') }}"
when: "'{{ item.department }}'=='profs'"
loop: " {{ users }} "
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
#the users_pass.yml
---
users:
- uname: linda
password: password
department: profs
- uname: lisa
password: secret
department: profs
- uname: anna
password: geheim
department: students
when running the above mentioned playbook and adding this var file i get the following error:
fatal: [ansible5]: FAILED! => {
"msg": "Invalid data passed to 'loop', it requires a list, got this instead: [{'uname': 'linda', 'password': 'password', 'department': 'profs'}, {'uname': 'lisa', 'password': 'secret', 'department': 'profs'}, {'uname': 'anna', 'password': 'geheim', 'department': 'students'}] . Hint: If you passed a list/dict of just one element, try adding wantlist=True to your lookup invocation or use q/query instead of lookup."
}
I really don't understand, I am sure that my declaration of variable is correct. Any help, please?

Answer 1

I think the problem is due to the space within the quotes in variable to loop, i.e. " {{ users }} ". There might be another "hidden" issue in the when condition due to the use of Jinja delimiters {{.
Overall, it should work with changes as below:
- name: create users who have depart set as profs
user:
name: "{{ item.uname }}"
groups: "{{ item.department }}"
shell: /bin/bash
password: "{{ item.password|password_hash('sha256') }}"
when: item.department == "profs"
loop: "{{ users }}"