How can I print out the actual values of all the variables used by an Ansible playbook? - variables

Question

An answer on StackOverflow suggests using - debug: var=vars or - debug: var=hostvars to print out all the variables used by an Ansible playbook.
Using var=hostvars did not print out all of the variables. But I did get all of the variables printed out when I added the following lines to the top of the main.yml file of the role executed by my playbook:
- name: print all variables
debug:
var=vars
The problem is that the values of the variables printed out are not fully evaluated if they are dependent on the values of other variables. For example, here is a portion of what gets printed out:
"env": "dev",
"rpm_repo": "project-subproject-rpm-{{env}}",
"index_prefix": "project{{ ('') if (env=='prod') else ('_' + env) }}",
"our_server": "{{ ('0.0.0.0') if (env=='dev') else ('192.168.100.200:9997') }}",
How can I get Ansible to print out the variables fully evaluated like this?
"env": "dev",
"rpm_repo": "project-subproject-rpm-dev",
"index_prefix": "project_dev",
"our_server": "0.0.0.0",
EDIT:
After incorporating the tasks section in the answer into my playbook file and removing the roles section, my playbook file looks like the following (where install-vars.yml contains some variable definitions):
- hosts: all
become: true
vars_files:
- install-vars.yml
tasks:
- debug:
msg: |-
{% for k in _my_vars %}
{{ k }}: {{ lookup('vars', k) }}
{% endfor %}
vars:
_special_vars:
- ansible_dependent_role_names
- ansible_play_batch
- ansible_play_hosts
- ansible_play_hosts_all
- ansible_play_name
- ansible_play_role_names
- ansible_role_names
- environment
- hostvars
- play_hosts
- role_names
_hostvars: "{{ hostvars[inventory_hostname].keys() }}"
_my_vars: "{{ vars.keys()|
difference(_hostvars)|
difference(_special_vars)|
reject('match', '^_.*$')|
list|
sort }}"
When I try to run the playbook, I get this failure:
shell> ansible-playbook playbook.yml
SSH password:
SUDO password[defaults to SSH password]:
PLAY [all] *********************************************************************
TASK [setup] *******************************************************************
ok: [192.168.100.111]
TASK [debug] *******************************************************************
fatal: [192.168.100.111]: FAILED! => {"failed": true, "msg": "lookup plugin (vars) not found"}
to retry, use: --limit #/usr/local/project-directory/installer-1.0.0.0/playbook.retry
PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
192.168.100.111 : ok=1 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=1

Answer 1

The minimal playbook below
shell> cat pb.yml
- hosts: localhost
gather_facts: false
vars:
test_var1: A
test_var2: "{{ test_var1 }}"
tasks:
- debug:
var: vars
reproduces the problem you described. For example,
shell> ansible-playbook pb.yml | grep test_var
test_var1: A
test_var2: '{{ test_var1 }}'
Q: How can I print out the actual values of all the variables used by an Ansible playbook?
A: You can get the actual values of the variables when you evaluate them. For example,
shell> cat pb.yml
- hosts: localhost
gather_facts: false
vars:
test_var1: A
test_var2: "{{ test_var1 }}"
tasks:
- debug:
msg: |-
{% for k in _my_vars %}
{{ k }}: {{ lookup('vars', k) }}
{% endfor %}
vars:
_special_vars:
- ansible_dependent_role_names
- ansible_play_batch
- ansible_play_hosts
- ansible_play_hosts_all
- ansible_play_name
- ansible_play_role_names
- ansible_role_names
- environment
- hostvars
- play_hosts
- role_names
_hostvars: "{{ hostvars[inventory_hostname].keys() }}"
_my_vars: "{{ vars.keys()|
difference(_hostvars)|
difference(_special_vars)|
reject('match', '^_.*$')|
list|
sort }}"
gives the evaluated playbook's vars
msg: |-
test_var1: A
test_var2: A

Answer 2

Looking for an answer to the same question, I found the following solution from this link:
- name: Display all variables/facts known for a host
debug:
var: hostvars[inventory_hostname]
tags: debug_info