reading json like variable in ansible

Question

I'm new to ansible and I'm having a problem reading a value from json file in ansible role. my variable has a value like the following:

{
  "queue": {
    "first": {
      "car": "bmw",
      "year": "1990",
      "model": "x3",
      "color": "blue"
    },
    "second": {
      "car": "bmw",
      "year": "2000",
      "model": "318",
      "color": "red"
    }
  }
}

I'm trying to print the color's value only to compare it with some other variable. I used with_dict to iterate over the json object (stored in variable called jsonVar) like the following:

- name: test loop
  with_dict: "{{jsonVar}}"
  shell:  |
        if echo "blue" | grep -q "${{item.value.color}}" ; then
           echo "success"

so far there is no luck in getting the comparison of color's value from json to "blue" from the if statement. I was wondering if I'm doing something wrong? thanks in advance!

Answer 1

You can read a json file using a lookup plugin called file and pass it to the from_json jinja2 filter. You also had mistake in the with_dict loop, since you have to loop over the jsonVar['queue'], not just jsonVar. Here is a complete code which works:

---
- hosts: your_host
  vars:
    jsonVar: "{{ lookup('file', 'var.json') | from_json }}"
  tasks:
    - name: test loop
      with_dict: "{{ jsonVar['queue'] }}"
      shell: |
        if echo "blue" | grep -q "{{ item.value.color }}" ; then
            echo "success"
        fi