problems with nested json_query - ansible

Question

I have the following json structure.
"results": [
{
"ltm_pools": [
{
"members": [
{
"full_path": "/Common/10.49.128.185:8080",
},
{
"full_path": "/Common/10.49.128.186:8080",
}
"name": "Staging-1-stresslab",
},
{
"members": [
{
"full_path": "/Common/10.49.128.187:0",
},
{
"full_path": "/Common/10.49.128.188:0",
}
],
"name": "Staging-2-lab",
},
I get an error when trying to do something like this
- debug:
msg: "{{item[0].host}} --- {{ item[1] }} --- {{ item[2] }}"
with_nested:
- "{{F5_hosts}}"
- "{{bigip_facts | json_query('[results[0].ltm_pools[*].name]') | flatten }}"
- "{{bigip_facts | json_query('[results[0].ltm_pools[?name.contains(#,'Staging'].members[::2].full_path]') | flatten }}"
I am unable to get the third array working.
I want to print the even members full_path variable from all objects where name contains staging.
I hope someone can help me I've been struggling with this for days.

Answer 1

From what I see/read/tried myself, you fell in this bug: https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/27299
This is the problem of "contains" JMESPath function as it is run by Ansible, to quote:
https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/27299#issuecomment-331068246
The problem is related to the fact that Ansible uses own types for strings: AnsibleUnicode and AnsibleUnsafeText.
And as long as jmespath library has very strict type-checking, it fails to accept this types as string literals.
There is also a suggested workaround, if you convert the variable to json and back, the strings in there have the correct type. Making long story short, this doesn't work:
"{{bigip_facts | json_query('results[0].ltm_pools[?name.contains(#,`Staging`)==`true`].members[::2].full_path') }}"
but this does:
"{{bigip_facts | to_json | from_json | json_query('results[0].ltm_pools[?name.contains(#,`Staging`)==`true`].members[::2].full_path') }}"
I've managed to run such a code:
- hosts: all
gather_facts: no
tasks:
- set_fact:
bigip_facts:
results:
- ltm_pools:
- members:
- full_path: "/Common/10.49.128.185:8080"
- full_path: "/Common/10.49.128.186:8080"
name: "Staging-1-stresslab"
- members:
- full_path: "/Common/10.49.128.187:0"
- full_path: "/Common/10.49.128.188:0"
name: "Staging-2-stresslab"
- name: "Debug ltm-pools"
debug:
msg: "{{ item }}"
with_items:
- "{{bigip_facts | to_json | from_json | json_query('results[0].ltm_pools[?name.contains(#,`Staging`)==`true`].members[::2].full_path') }}"
And it works as you wanted:
PLAY [all] *****************************************************************************************
TASK [set_fact] ************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost]
TASK [Debug ltm-pools] *****************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => (item=[u'/Common/10.49.128.185:8080']) => {
"msg": [
"/Common/10.49.128.185:8080"
]
}
ok: [localhost] => (item=[u'/Common/10.49.128.187:0']) => {
"msg": [
"/Common/10.49.128.187:0"
]
}
PLAY RECAP *****************************************************************************************
localhost : ok=2 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0