Set fact with dynamic key name in ansible

Question

I am trying to shrink several chunks of similar code which looks like:

- ... multiple things is going here   register: list_register - name: Generating list   set_fact: my_list="{{ list_register.results | map(attribute='ansible_facts.list_item') | list }}"  # the same code repeats... 

In fact, the only difference between them is that I am using different list names here instead of my_list

In fact I want to do this:

set_fact:   "{{ some var }}" : "{{ some value }}" 

I came across this post but didn't find any answer here.

Is it possible to do so or is there any workaround?

Answer 1

take a look at this sample playbook:

--- - hosts: localhost   vars:     iter:       - key: abc         val: xyz       - key: efg         val: uvw   tasks:     - set_fact: {"{{ item.key }}":"{{ item.val }}"}       with_items: "{{iter}}"     - debug: msg="key={{item.key}}, hostvar={{hostvars['localhost'][item.key]}}"       with_items: "{{iter}}" 

Answer 2

The above does not work for me. What finally works is

- set_fact:     example_dict: "{'{{ some var }}':'{{ some other var }}'}" 

Which is in the end obvious. You construct a string (the outer double quotes) which is then interpreted as a hash. In hashes key and value must be single quotes (the inner single quotes around the variable replacements). And finally you just place your variable replacements as in any other string.

Stefan