test-module cannot parse complex arguments that contain characters like : or /

[chbndrhnns]

ISSUE TYPE

• Bug Report

COMPONENT NAME

hacking/test-module

ANSIBLE VERSION

ansible 2.4.0 (3-access-to-networks 6a61aecebc) last updated 2017/07/11 11:36:57 (GMT +200)
  config file = None
  configured module search path = [u'/Users/jo/.ansible/plugins/modules', u'/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /Users/jo/repos/ansible/lib/ansible
  executable location = /Users/jo/repos/ansible/bin/ansible
  python version = 2.7.13 (default, Dec 18 2016, 07:03:39) [GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 8.0.0 (clang-800.0.42.1)]

CONFIGURATION

None

OS / ENVIRONMENT

Mac OS X 10.12

SUMMARY

Using hacking/test-module to run one of my modules locally fails when I supply arguments that contain some special characters like:

• :
• /

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

Have an arbitrary module and use the test-module command:

/hacking/test-module -m contrail_network.py -a "{"auth": [{"endpoint": "localhost:8082"},{}]}"

EXPECTED RESULTS

Correct parsing of the parameters

ACTUAL RESULTS

Parsing error

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "../../../../../hacking/test-module", line 266, in <module>
    main()
  File "../../../../../hacking/test-module", line 247, in main
    (modfile, modname, module_style) = boilerplate_module(options.module_path, options.module_args, interpreters, options.check, options.filename)
  File "../../../../../hacking/test-module", line 134, in boilerplate_module
    complex_args = utils_vars.combine_vars(complex_args, loader.load(args))
  File "/Users/jo/repos/ansible/lib/ansible/parsing/dataloader.py", line 115, in load
    self._handle_error(yaml_exc, file_name, show_content)
  File "/Users/jo/repos/ansible/lib/ansible/parsing/dataloader.py", line 221, in _handle_error
    raise AnsibleParserError(YAML_SYNTAX_ERROR, obj=err_obj, show_content=show_content, orig_exc=yaml_exc)
ansible.errors.AnsibleParserError: Syntax Error while loading YAML.


The error appears to have been in '<string>': line 1, column 29, but may
be elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.

exception type: <class 'yaml.scanner.ScannerError'>
exception: while scanning a plain scalar
  in "<byte string>", line 1, column 20
found unexpected ':'
  in "<byte string>", line 1, column 29
make: *** [test-1] Error 1

[chbndrhnns]

In the gitter channel I came across the idea to use single quotes for the whole thing which works.

So, if that's the intended, then the README.md is wrong where the example is like this:

Use:

$ ./hacking/test-module -m module
-a "{"parent": {"child": [{"item": "first", "val": "foo"}, {"item": "second", "val": "bar"}]}}"

Still, the child value in Python is then a string, although I expected a nested dictionary.

[sivel]

This issue has been resolved in the documentation via #26667

If you have further questions please stop by IRC or the mailing list:

• IRC: #ansible on irc.freenode.net
• mailing list: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ansible-project