Puppet relationship with a Hash

Question

I would like to run the following code in a sequential order so that the servers_string variable is computed before the script execution.

Unfortunately puppet failed with the following error :

Error: Could not retrieve catalog from remote server: Error 400 on SERVER: Evaluation Error: Illegal relationship operand, can not form a relationship with a Hash. A Catalog type is required.

The code snippet :

$servers = [{ name => 'toto', ip => '10.0.0.1'}, { name => 'titi', ip =>  '10.0.0.2' }]
$servers.each | Hash $server | {
  if $servers_string != "" {
    $servers_string = "${servers_string},"
  }

  $name = $server['name']
  $servers_string = "${servers_string}${name}"
}->

file { '/my/path/myscript.sh':
    ensure => file,
    mode   => '0700',
    owner  => 'root',
    group  => 'root',
    source => "puppet:///modules/${module_name}/install.sh --servers '${servers_string}'"
}

Any idea ? Thanks

Answer 1

Resource relationships in general and the chain operators in particular are about the order in which resources are applied to the node. They have nothing whatever to do with the order in which the catalog builder evaluates manifest files.

Manifests are always evaluated in order, left-to-right, top-to-bottom. You do not need to use chain operators to ensure that, nor can you use them to change it. Just drop the chain operator, and you'll be fine (at least in this regard).