Using True False with Ansible When Clause

Question

I'm running into the silliest issue. I cannot figure out how to test for boolean in an Ansible 2.2 task file.

In vars/main.yml, I have:

destroy: false 

In the playbook, I have:

roles:    - {'role': 'vmdeploy','destroy': true} 

In the task file, I have the following:

- include: "create.yml"   when: "{{ destroy|bool }} == 'false'" 

I've tried various combinations below:

when: "{{ destroy|bool }} == false" when: "{{ destroy|bool }} == 'false'" when: "{{ destroy|bool  == false}}" when: "{{ destroy  == false}}" when: "{{ destroy  == 'false'}}" when: destroy|bool  == false when: destroy|bool  == 'false' when: not destroy|bool 

In all the above cases, I still get:

statically included: .../vmdeploy/tasks/create.yml 

Debug output:

- debug:     msg: "{{ destroy }}"  ---  ok: [atlcicd009] => { "msg": true } 

The desired result, is that it would skip the include.

Answer 1

To run a task when destroy is true:

--- - hosts: localhost   connection: local   vars:     destroy: true   tasks:     - debug:       when: destroy 

and when destroy is false:

--- - hosts: localhost   connection: local   vars:     destroy: false   tasks:     - debug:       when: not destroy 

Answer 2

There is no need to use the bool Jinja filter if the value of the variable is defined under hostvars.

To cast values as certain types, such as when you input a string as “True” from a vars_prompt and the system doesn’t know it is a boolean value.

So a simple

when: not destroy 

should do the trick.