I had a playbook fail because of the error dict object has no element

It took me ages to debug it, but the problem is that I had defined the index as a string, but was trying to match it to a number. To fix it, I only had to quote the version in the inventory, and everything worked.

I was only caught by this because I was using an old inventory file to test with. I think it used to automatically cast numbers to string, but that stopped a while ago.

var.yml

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--- 
 - hosts: webservers
   tasks:

    - debug: var=toolsversion

    - debug: var=installed_homes

    - debug: var=installed_homes["8.55"]

    - debug: var=installed_homes[toolsversion]

    - debug: var=item
      with_items:  "{{ installed_homes[toolsversion] }}"

group_vars/webservers.yml

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  installed_homes:
    "8.55":
      - "C:\\psft\\pt\\bea\\tuxedo"
      - "C:\\psft\\pt\\oracle-client\\12.1.0.2"
    "8.56":
      - "C:\\psft\\pt\\bea\\tuxedo"
      - "C:\\psft\\pt\\oracle-client\\12.1.0.2"

  toolsversion: 8.55

inventory

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[webservers]
whisk

Run Output

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$ ansible-playbook -i inventory var.yml 

PLAY [webservers] ***************************************************

TASK [Gathering Facts] **********************************************
ok: [whisk]

TASK [debug] ********************************************************
ok: [whisk] => {
    "toolsversion": 8.55
}

TASK [debug] ********************************************************
ok: [whisk] => {
    "installed_homes": {
        "8.55": [
            "C:\\psft\\pt\\bea\\tuxedo", 
            "C:\\psft\\pt\\oracle-client\\12.1.0.2"
        ], 
        "8.56": [
            "C:\\psft\\pt\\bea\\tuxedo", 
            "C:\\psft\\pt\\oracle-client\\12.1.0.2"
        ]
    }
}

TASK [debug] ********************************************************
ok: [whisk] => {
    "installed_homes[\"8.55\"]": [
        "C:\\psft\\pt\\bea\\tuxedo", 
        "C:\\psft\\pt\\oracle-client\\12.1.0.2"
    ]
}

TASK [debug] ********************************************************
ok: [whisk] => {
    "installed_homes[toolsversion]": "VARIABLE IS NOT DEFINED!"
}

TASK [debug] ********************************************************
fatal: [whisk]: FAILED! => {"msg": "dict object has no element 8.55"}
        to retry, use: --limit @/home/me/ansible-test/var.retry

PLAY RECAP **********************************************************
whisk               : ok=5    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=1

The Fix

So the fix is, change the variables to quote the version number, because it needs to be a string.

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  toolsversion: "8.55"

Simple. Nobody would spend an entire morning working this out…