Ansible Generate an array of numbers

Question

My intention is to generate a list containing numbers from 1 to 22 and for that I wrote below Ansible script.

- hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
    - name: Generate sequance
      set_fact:
        mysequence: "{{ item | list }}"
      with_sequence: start=1 end=22

    - debug: var=mysequence

When I run the code I get this weird result

$ ansible-playbook test.yml

PLAY [localhost] **************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [Generate sequance] ******************************************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => (item=1)
ok: [localhost] => (item=2)
ok: [localhost] => (item=3)
ok: [localhost] => (item=4)
ok: [localhost] => (item=5)
ok: [localhost] => (item=6)
ok: [localhost] => (item=7)
ok: [localhost] => (item=8)
ok: [localhost] => (item=9)
ok: [localhost] => (item=10)
ok: [localhost] => (item=11)
ok: [localhost] => (item=12)
ok: [localhost] => (item=13)
ok: [localhost] => (item=14)
ok: [localhost] => (item=15)
ok: [localhost] => (item=16)
ok: [localhost] => (item=17)
ok: [localhost] => (item=18)
ok: [localhost] => (item=19)
ok: [localhost] => (item=20)
ok: [localhost] => (item=21)
ok: [localhost] => (item=22)

TASK [debug] ******************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => {
    "mysequence": [
        "2",
        "2"
    ]
}

PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=2    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0

I am using latest version of Ansible. Any help is greatly appreciated!

---

I need this list for another task. Here is a snippet:

- name: Reboot 22 VMs
  vmware_guest:
    validate_certs: false
    hostname: x.x.x.x
    username: [email protected]
    password: PASSS
    datacenter: DC1
    folder: "DC1/vm/Pod-{{item[1]}}"
    name: "{{item[0]}}-Pod-{{item[1]}}"
    state: restarted
  delegate_to: localhost
  with_nested:
    - "{{myVarList}}"
    - [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22]

Answer 1

Nothing is weird in your results: you set mysequence 22 times, the values of the first 21 iterations are overwritten, the last value is a string 22 converted to a list with list filter. In result you get two-element list with 2 and 2.

What you wanted the task to look like is:

- name: Generate sequance
  set_fact:
    mysequence: "{{ mysequence | default([]) + [item | int] }}"
  with_sequence: start=1 end=22

---

But what you really wanted is a way of generating a list of integers in a Jinja2 template:

- set_fact:
    mysequence: "{{ range(1, 22 + 1) | list }}"