How to get variables from ansible result

Question

I have a shell script whose output is an echo of the following format
<variable_1>;<variable_2>;<variable_3> etc

I want to use these variables and run a mysql query to update a DB like so
mysql -u<user> -p<password> -h<host> -e'insert into test_table values ("variable_1","variable_2","variable_3")'

My ansible playbook looks like this.

---
- hosts: infoServers
  sudo: yes
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
  - name: gather info
    script: get_hostdata.sh
    register: result
  - name: print result
    local_action: command mysql -uuser -ppassword -h192.168.101.10 ansible_db -e'insert into test_table values ("{{ item[0] }}","{{ item[1] }}","{{ item[3] }});'
    with_items: [ result.stdout.split(';')[0], result.stdout.split(';')[1], result.stdout.split(';')[2] ]

ERROR: Syntax Error while loading YAML script, test_variables.yml

Basically i want to be able to use the output of a shell command, split it into some variables and be able to use those in further ansible actions. Can you please guide me on how to access the variables correctly?

Thank you

Answer 1

When you get an error like this you really should provide the full details of the error message. When I cut and paste your playbook into a file and tried to run it I got the following:

ERROR: Syntax Error while loading YAML script, ff.yml
Note: The error may actually appear before this position: line 11, column 43

    local_action: command mysql -uuser -ppassword -h192.168.101.10 ansible_db -e'insert into test_table values ("{{ item[0] }}","{{ item[1] }}","{{ item[3] }});'
    with_items: [ result.stdout.split(';')[0], result.stdout.split(';')[1], result.stdout.split(';')[2] ]
                                          ^

So it appears, if this matches up with the full error you were receiving that the syntax of your with_items clause is wrong.

I'm not sure why you're even trying to do this using with_items. All you're effectively doing in this case is some unnecessary variable substitution. The following should also do exactly what you want:

- name: print result
    local_action: command mysql -uuser -ppassword -h192.168.101.10 ansible_db -e'insert into test_table values ("{{ result.stdout.split(';')[0] }}","{{ result.stdout.split(';')[1] }}","{{ result.stdout.split(';')[2] }}");'

Answer 2

You need to quote and use {{}} correctly.

- hosts: localhost
  tags: s16
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
  - shell: echo 'variable_1;variable_2;variable_3'
    register: result
  - local_action: debug msg="values ("{{ item[0] }}","{{ item[1] }}","{{ item[3] }}");'"
    with_items: [ "{{result.stdout.split(';')[0]}}", "{{result.stdout.split(';')[1]}}", "{{result.stdout.split(';')[2]}}" ]

Will print something like:

TASK: [debug msg="values ("{{ item[0] }}","{{ item[1] }}","{{ item[3] }}");'"] *** 
ok: [localhost -> 127.0.0.1] => (item=variable_1) => {
    "item": "variable_1", 
    "msg": "values (\"v\",\"a\",\"i\");'"
}
ok: [localhost -> 127.0.0.1] => (item=variable_2) => {
    "item": "variable_2", 
    "msg": "values (\"v\",\"a\",\"i\");'"
}
ok: [localhost -> 127.0.0.1] => (item=variable_3) => {
    "item": "variable_3", 
    "msg": "values (\"v\",\"a\",\"i\");'"
}

As you can see with item[0], .., item[2] you're indexing into the string "variable_1" instead of the array ["variable_1","variable_2","variable_3"]

Simplest (and a lot more performant) way to do this would be:

- hosts: localhost
  tags: s17
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
  - shell: echo 'variable_1;variable_2;variable_3'
    register: result
- debug: msg="insert into tt values ("{{result.stdout|replace(';', '","')}}");'"