Hi,

I am not sure whether someone has come across this issue previously - 
trying to search the group for 'when' and 'is defined' did not yield me 
anything useful. So I am posting it as a new topic here.
I have encountered that in case I use 'when:' clause where I need to test 
whether one variable is set to 'true' and another one is defined, the 
following playbook triggers action even if the first variable is 'false':

cat > test_playbook.yaml <<EOF
---
- hosts: all
  gather_facts: false

  tasks:
    - name: Play only if var1 is true and var2 is defined
      local_action: command echo "Yes {{ var1 }} is true and {{ var2 }} is 
defined"
      when: var1 and var2 is defined
EOF

$ ansible-playbook -i host -v test_playbook.yaml --extra-vars "var1=false 
var2='something'"

PLAY [all] 
******************************************************************** 

TASK: [Play only if var1 is true and var2 is defined] 
************************* 
changed: [localhost] => {"changed": true, "cmd": ["echo", "Yes false is 
true and something is defined"], "delta": "0:00:00.003256", "end": 
"2014-02-04 11:19:56.720699", "rc": 0, "start": "2014-02-04 
11:19:56.717443", "stderr": "", "stdout": "Yes false is true and something 
is defined"}

PLAY RECAP 
******************************************************************** 
localhost                  : ok=1    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0 
  
 
Only if I change the conditions to be supplied on separate 'when:' lines, 
it works as expected:

cat > test1_playbook.yaml <<EOF
---
- hosts: all
  gather_facts: false

  tasks:
    - name: Play only if var1 is true and var2 is defined
      local_action: command echo "Yes {{ var1 }} is true and {{ var2 }} is 
defined"
      when: var2 is defined
      when: var1
EOF

$ ansible-playbook -i host -v test_playbook.yaml --extra-vars "var1=false 
var2='something'"

PLAY [all] 
******************************************************************** 

TASK: [Play only if var1 is true and var2 is defined] 
************************* 
skipping: [localhost]

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

$ ansible-playbook -i host -v test_playbook.yaml --extra-vars "var1=true 
var2='something'"

PLAY [all] 
******************************************************************** 

TASK: [Play only if var1 is true and var2 is defined] 
************************* 
changed: [localhost] => {"changed": true, "cmd": ["echo", "Yes true is true 
and something is defined"], "delta": "0:00:00.002733", "end": "2014-02-04 
11:22:20.289360", "rc": 0, "start": "2014-02-04 11:22:20.286627", "stderr": 
"", "stdout": "Yes true is true and something is defined"}

PLAY RECAP 
******************************************************************** 
localhost                  : ok=1    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0 
  

However in this case it fails (not skips) when the var2 is undefined and 
var1 is true, which is not really a desired behaviour:

$ ansible-playbook -i host -v test_playbook.yaml --extra-vars "var1=true"

PLAY [all] 
******************************************************************** 

TASK: [Play only if var1 is true and var2 is defined] 
************************* 
fatal: [localhost] => One or more undefined variables: 'var2' is undefined

FATAL: all hosts have already failed -- aborting

PLAY RECAP 
******************************************************************** 
           to retry, use: --limit @/Users/roman/test_playbook.yaml.retry

localhost                  : ok=0    changed=0    unreachable=1    failed=0 
  

The order of  'when's also matters, in case their order is reverted like 
follows

      when: var1
      when: var2 is defined

the playbook starts behaving like in the first example where 'when' 
conditions were supplied on one line using the 'and' operator.
If I use 

     when: var1==true and var2 is defined

the playbook would skip the action even all conditions are satisfied: 

$ ansible-playbook -i host -v test_playbook.yaml --extra-vars "var1=true 
var2='defined'"

PLAY [all] 
******************************************************************** 

TASK: [Play only if var1 is true and var2 is defined] 
************************* 
skipping: [localhost]

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

The 
docs<http://docs.ansible.com/playbooks_conditionals.html#the-when-statement> do 
not shed any more light on that strange behaviour.

Thanks a lot in advance,

With kind regards,
Roman

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