Ansible: how to construct a variable from another variable and then fetch it's value

Question

Here is my problem I need to use one variable \'target_host\' and then append \'_host\' to it\'s value to get another variable name whose value I need. If you look at my pl

Answer 1

This is possible as of Ansible 2.5 with the vars lookup plugin, which I think is less likely to break without warning than some of the other methods posted here. For example:

---
 - name: "Example of dynamic groups"
   hosts: localhost
   vars:
     - target_host: smtp
     - smtp_host: smtp.max.com
   tasks:
     - name: testing
       debug: msg={{ lookup('vars', target_host + '_host') }}

Output:

PLAY [Example of dynamic groups] **************************************************

TASK [Gathering Facts] **************************************************
ok: [localhost]

TASK [testing] **************************************************
ok: [localhost] => {
    "msg": "smtp.max.com"
}