Ansible - Looping on a list of lists one after another - list

Question

Even if this question looks rather simple (and I've been searching and testing a lot), I cannot figure out how to loop on two ore more lists in ansible in a single task.
For instance, a very simple example :
My vars.yml :
list1:
- /tmp/dir1
- /tmp/dir2
- /tmp/dir3
list2:
- /tmp/dir4
- /tmp/dir5
- /tmp/dir6
My task:
task:
- name: Create basic directories if they do not exist
file:
path: "{{ DIRECTORY }}"
state: directory
loop:
- "{{ list1 }}"
- "{{ list2 }}"
loop_control:
loop_var: DIRECTORY
Obviously I could create all of them in a single task in a single list, but I have ALOT to create, hence my question.
Thanks in advance,

Answer 1

For example, given the lists below
list1:
- /tmp/dir1
- /tmp/dir2
- /tmp/dir3
list2:
- /tmp/dir4
- /tmp/dir5
- /tmp/dir6
list3:
- /tmp/dir1
- /tmp/dir4
- /tmp/dir9
Create a list of these lists, then flatten them and select unique items only, e.g.
list3: "{{ [list1, list2, list3]|flatten|unique }}"
gives probably what you are looking for
list3:
- /tmp/dir1
- /tmp/dir2
- /tmp/dir3
- /tmp/dir4
- /tmp/dir5
- /tmp/dir6
- /tmp/dir9
You can use it in the loop, of course
task:
- name: Create basic directories if they do not exist
file:
path: "{{ DIRECTORY }}"
state: directory
loop: "{{ [list1, list2, list3]|flatten|unique }}"
loop_control:
loop_var: DIRECTORY
The situation is even simpler if the lists are stored in a file, e.g.
shell> cat vars.yml
list1:
- /tmp/dir1
- /tmp/dir2
- /tmp/dir3
list2:
- /tmp/dir4
- /tmp/dir5
- /tmp/dir6
list3:
- /tmp/dir1
- /tmp/dir4
- /tmp/dir9
Include the variables(lists) from the file into a dictionary
- include_vars:
file: vars.yml
name: lists
This will create the dictionary lists
lists:
list1:
- /tmp/dir1
- /tmp/dir2
- /tmp/dir3
list2:
- /tmp/dir4
- /tmp/dir5
- /tmp/dir6
list3:
- /tmp/dir1
- /tmp/dir4
- /tmp/dir9
Then, flatten the values and select unique items. The expression below creates the same list as before without explicitly knowing the lists, i.e. you can keep the code untouched and change the data in the file vars.yml only
list3: "{{ lists.values()|flatten|unique }}"