Support lists and maps in ansible_group and ansible_host variables

Hey there, we have found out that this provider only accepts strings in the variables field in ansible_group and ansible_host.

map example:

resource "ansible_group" "all" {
  name = "all"
  variables = {
    simple_map = {
      key = "value"
    }
  }
}

Error:

╷
│ Error: Incorrect attribute value type
│ 
│   on ansible_output.tf line 29, in resource "ansible_group" "all":
│   29:   variables = {
│   30:     simple_map = {
│   31:       key = "value"
│   32:     }
│   33:   }
│ 
│ Inappropriate value for attribute "variables": element "simple_map": string required.
╵

Our current workaround for this is using the jsonencode function in terraform.

resource "ansible_group" "all" {
  name = "all"
  variables = {
    simple_map = jsonencode({
      key = "value"
    })
  }
}

However this workaround has it's limitations eg. using the combine() function to merge some dicts together. Terraform saves simple_map as an string and combine() will fail as it can't combine/merge an dict/map with an string.

Another example for this issue: terraform:

resource "ansible_group" "all" {
  name = "all"
  variables = {
    patch_telegraf = jsonencode({
      inputs = "just_a_test"
    })
  }
}

ansible:

- name: TELEGRAF | Combine telegraf defaults with patched values
  ansible.builtin.set_fact:
    telegraf: "{{ default_telegraf | combine(patch_telegraf, recursive=True) }}"

Error:

fatal: [testvm]: FAILED! => {"msg": "failed to combine variables, expected dicts but got a 'dict' and a 'str': \n{\"global_tags\": {\"resource_type\": null, \"cloud\": null, \"project\": null}, \"version\": \"1.2*\", \"agent\": {\"interval\": \"10s\", \"round_interval\": true, \"metric_batch_size\": 1000, \"metric_buffer_limit\": 10000, \"collection_jitter\": \"0s\", \"flush_interval\": \"10s\", \"flush_jitter\": \"0s\", \"precision\": \"1s\", \"logfile_rotation_max_archives\": 5, \"hostname\": \"\", \"omit_hostname\": false}, \"outputs\": {\"thanos\": {\"enabled\": false, \"url\": null, \"insecure_skip_verify\": false}}, \"inputs\": {\"snmp\": {\"enabled\": false, \"cisco\": {\"enabled\": false}}, \"bind\": {\"enabled\": false}, \"docker\": {\"enabled\": false}, \"iptables\": {\"enabled\": false}, \"rabbitmq\": {\"enabled\": false}, \"postgres\": {\"enabled\": false}, \"net\": {\"enabled\": false}, \"openldap\": {\"enabled\": false}, \"bcache\": {\"enabled\": false}, \"ipvs\": {\"enabled\": false}, \"vmware\": {\"enabled\": false}, \"prometheus\": {\"enabled\": false}, \"ntpq\": {\"enabled\": false}, \"mdstat\": {\"enabled\": false}}}\n\"{\\\"inputs\\\":\\\"just_a_test\\\"}\""}

For this issue we have also an workaround. Using | from_json in the combine() function will convert the string into an dict/map again and the merge will work again.

- name: TELEGRAF | Combine telegraf defaults with patched values
  ansible.builtin.set_fact:
    telegraf: "{{ default_telegraf | combine(patch_telegraf | from_json, recursive=True) }}"

It is really sad that this provider doesn't support Maps or Lists in the variables field. It would be really helpful for us as we don't need to implement any of those workarounds to deal with different variable types.

Thanks!

ansible / terraform-provider-ansible

Support lists and maps in ansible_group and ansible_host variables #49