Cannot get highstate style output with salt.states.tomcat.war_deployed

[perdurabo93]

I'm running salt 2014.1.3 (I cant use 2014.1.4 because of #12699). I've got a simple state that deploys a war file to a local tomcat server like so:

MyApp:
  tomcat:
    - war_deployed
    - name: /MyApp
    - war: salt://workspace/myapp/target/Myapp-1.0.0.war

When I attempt to deploy it after that version is already deployed, I get an output like this from salt-call -l debug state.sls myapp , which is as expected:

[DEBUG   ] Loaded no_out as virtual quiet
[DEBUG   ] Loaded json_out as virtual json
[DEBUG   ] Loaded yaml_out as virtual yaml
[DEBUG   ] Loaded pprint_out as virtual pprint
local:
----------
          ID: MyApp
    Function: tomcat.war_deployed
        Name: /MyApp
      Result: True
     Comment: /MyApp in version MyApp-1.0.0 is already deployed
     Changes:   

Summary
------------
Succeeded: 1
Failed:    0
------------
Total:     1

However, when I do a fresh deploy, theres a python error and the output goes from the well formatted "highstate" style, to a very ugly "pprint" style:

[DEBUG   ] Loaded no_out as virtual quiet
[DEBUG   ] Loaded json_out as virtual json
[DEBUG   ] Loaded yaml_out as virtual yaml
[DEBUG   ] Loaded pprint_out as virtual pprint
[DEBUG   ] Loaded no_out as virtual quiet
[DEBUG   ] Loaded json_out as virtual json
[DEBUG   ] Loaded yaml_out as virtual yaml
[DEBUG   ] Loaded pprint_out as virtual pprint
[DEBUG   ] Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/salt/output/__init__.py", line 35, in display_output
    display_data = get_printout(out, opts)(data).rstrip()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/salt/output/highstate.py", line 44, in output
    return _format_host(host, hostdata)[0]
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/salt/output/highstate.py", line 128, in _format_host
    comment = ret['comment'].join(' ').replace('\n',
AttributeError: 'dict' object has no attribute 'join'

[DEBUG   ] Loaded no_out as virtual quiet
[DEBUG   ] Loaded json_out as virtual json
[DEBUG   ] Loaded yaml_out as virtual yaml
[DEBUG   ] Loaded pprint_out as virtual pprint
              ----------
              local:
                  ----------
                  tomcat_|-MyApp_|-/MyApp_|-war_deployed:
                      ----------
                      __run_num__:
                          0
                      changes:
                          ----------
                          deploy:
                              deployed /MyApp in version MyApp-1.0.0
                      comment:
                          ----------
                          fullname:
                              MyApp##MyApp-1.0.0
                          mode:
                              running
                          sessions:
                              0
                          version:
                              MyApp-1.0.0
                      name:
                          /MyApp
                      result:
                          True

This happens even when I invoke the state with "--out=highstate".

[basepi]

It appears that that state is erroneously putting a dictionary in the Comment field on successful runs. The highstate outputter is hitting an exception as a result and we're falling back on the default outputter. Thanks for the report, we'll get this fixed.

[basepi]

I've fixed the traceback, so the highstate outputter should start working again for this state. But it won't be especially pretty, as the 'Comment' is supposed to be a string, and apparently the author made it a dict in some cases.

[perdurabo93]

While we're altering states/tomcat.py, can we get a "force=True" option added to the salt.states.tomcat.war_deployed to match the same functionality in salt.modules.tomcat.deploy_war?

[basepi]

I did not actually modify tomcat.py. I just added logic to the highstate outputter to allow for dictionaries in the comment field.

Would you mind opening another issue for that feature request, @perdurabo93? Sounds like it would be straightforward to add, but I don't want to forget about it.