Depth for Object to use in ConvertTo-Yaml changed from 0.4.2 to 0.4.12

[falkheiland]

while back in 0.4.2 i could create a ansible inventory with a depth of 7, this is not possible in 0.4.12 anymore. here the depth seems to be restricted to 6. this leads to the following result:

- all:
    children:
      appliance:
        hosts:
          CAG:
            ansible_host:
            - Length: 14
            - Length: 14
            - Length: 14

while with 0.4.2:

- all:
    children:
      appliance:
        hosts:
          CAG:
            ansible_host:
            - 192.168.0.1
            - 192.168.0.2
            - 192.168.0.3

$YamlColl.all.children.appliance.hosts.CAG | ConvertTo-Yaml

ansible_host:
- 192.168.0.1
- 192.168.0.2
- 192.168.0.3


$YamlColl.all | ConvertTo-Yaml

children:
  appliance:
    hosts:
      CAG:
        ansible_host:
        - 192.168.0.1
        - 192.168.0.2
        - 192.168.0.3


$YamlColl | ConvertTo-Yaml

all:
  children:
    appliance:
      hosts:
        CAG:
          ansible_host:
          - Length: 14
          - Length: 14
          - Length: 14

[gabriel-samfira]

Hi @falkheiland

🫠

Looking into it today. My apologies for breaking things in such creative ways. Will ping back when I have an update.

[gabriel-samfira]

I tried the following:

PS /home/gabriel> import-module powershell-yaml
PS /home/gabriel> get-module powershell-yaml   

ModuleType Version    PreRelease Name                                ExportedCommands
---------- -------    ---------- ----                                ----------------
Script     0.4.12                powershell-yaml                     {ConvertFrom-Yaml, ConvertTo-Yaml, cfy, cty}

PS /home/gabriel> $data = @"                   
>> - all:
>>     children:
>>       appliance:
>>         hosts:
>>           CAG:
>>             ansible_host:
>>             - 192.168.0.1
>>             - 192.168.0.2
>>             - 192.168.0.3
>> "@
PS /home/gabriel> cfy $data | cty              
- all:
    children:
      appliance:
        hosts:
          CAG:
            ansible_host:
            - 192.168.0.1
            - 192.168.0.2
            - 192.168.0.3

PS /home/gabriel> 

Is this the correct test case?

[gabriel-samfira]

Added a few more levels of nesting for good measure:

PS /home/gabriel> $data = @"
>> - all:
>>     children:
>>       appliance:
>>         hosts:
>>           CAG:
>>             bla:
>>               bla2:
>>                 bla3:
>>                   bla4:
>>                     bla5:
>>                       bla6:
>>                         bla7:
>>                           bla8:
>>                             bla9:
>>                               bla10:
>>                                 ansible_host:
>>                                 - 192.168.0.1
>>                                 - 192.168.0.2
>>                                 - 192.168.0.3
>> "@
PS /home/gabriel> 
PS /home/gabriel> 
PS /home/gabriel> cfy $data | cty
- all:
    children:
      appliance:
        hosts:
          CAG:
            bla:
              bla2:
                bla3:
                  bla4:
                    bla5:
                      bla6:
                        bla7:
                          bla8:
                            bla9:
                              bla10:
                                ansible_host:
                                - 192.168.0.1
                                - 192.168.0.2
                                - 192.168.0.3

PS /home/gabriel> 

[gabriel-samfira]

I added a new test case here:

• Add new test for depth #183

But it seems to be fine on both powershell core and powershell.exe on all platforms. Could you give me a snippet I could copy paste so I can try to reproduce?

[falkheiland]

the function i used to create the collection that then uses Convertto-Yaml sets the property "IPAddress" as String as it expect one value to be associated with. due to my fault at times multiple IPAddresses to one property were set.
In the 0.4.2 that somehow is accepted and the first / one ? value is used. the 0.4.12 does not accept this and sets 'Length xyz'.

I found the error on my end (unique IPAddress property for an item) and the correct yaml is created again.

There has certainly been a change from 0.4.2 to 0.4.12 but since this was an error on the user side there is probably nothing to fix on your side. thanks for the quick response!

[gabriel-samfira]

I would love to have some repro steps in any case, because this may indeed be a new bug. There have been extensive changes in the way we serialize and load the required assemblies in recent versions, which has caused a number of issues (fixed, hopefully, in the meantime).

It would be immensely useful if you could provide a small github gist with just the needed code to generate the issue so I can investigate further.

[falkheiland]

i tried to create a somewhat useful gist - there are two much components to include them all - hope it helps

https://gist.github.com/falkheiland/d06fedc538076e94bb6e8c32f6235119

[gabriel-samfira]

It's not really clear what type of object ends up being generated.

It would be useful if you could manually reproduce the object and type that your code generates so we have a canned sample we can use. Or at least specify the type of the object that gets marshaled as Length: 14.

Is it a PSCustomObject? A Class? Something else?

[falkheiland]

It would be useful if you could manually reproduce the object and type that your code generates so we have a canned sample we can use.

this is not that easy for me tbh. i would have to check out an old commit. than isolate that code from a private function (kind of) - i would have to invest time to figure that out, since i am not very versed with proper debugging. can't really promise that. we can have a teams session and i show you the code if that helps.

Is it a PSCustomObject? A Class? Something else?

PSCustomObject

[gabriel-samfira]

let's try something else. In your gist you have 2 files: Devices.json and TagDevices.json. Could you supply some sample files with some sample values? Or could you tell me how to generate my own?

Also, it would be useful to know how to populate $InventoryDeviceColl. With that info, I can probably generate the object.

[falkheiland]

just fyi. i will follow up on that, but don't have the ability to do so for some days.

[gabriel-samfira]

No worries

[gabriel-samfira]

I think that this is related:

• Bug when converting from JSON and Powershell lists to YAML since version 0.4.8 #185

And should be fixed by:

• Pass non mapping to base serializer #186

It would be great if you could test.