@black3dynamite said in Ansible facts nested variable syntax preference:

Looks like Bracket notation is best choice instead of dot.

Bracket notation always works. Dot notation can cause problems because some keys collide with attributes and methods of python dictionaries. Use bracket notation if you use keys which start and end with two underscores (which are reserved for special meanings in python) or are any of the known public attributes:

Overlooked that in the documentation. While it's less efficient to type [' and '] rather than ., I'll live with it. 🙂

@Obsolesce said in YAML terminology and Ansible:

@Pete-S said in YAML terminology and Ansible:

@Obsolesce said in YAML terminology and Ansible:

@Pete-S said in YAML terminology and Ansible:

Other than that it doesn't matter to me what anyone calls it.

You are 100% to call it whatever you want. But a key/value pair is commonly referred to as a dictionary... or a hash table which is a dictionary data type. This isn't exclusive to Python in the least.

"Commonly referred" depends on the programming language in question. For example in many other languages it's commonly called an array or collection and never a dictionary.

If you look at the part you quoted, YAML calls it mappings.

The proper computer science terminology would be associative array.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associative_array

The best thing to do is to call it exactly what the language or software you are referring to calls it. If Ansible wants you to create what it has named in their documentation as a dictionary in YAML, that's what you refer to it as. Otherwise, someone who is familiar with Ansible and it's documentation won't know what the hell you are talking about if you call it your own thing.

I can agree with that point of view - YAML in the context of Ansible.
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/reference_appendices/YAMLSyntax.html

So you'd call it dictionaries then. And lists.

@JaredBusch said in Can someone explain yaml spacing to me because Im going insane:

@DustinB3403 said in Can someone explain yaml spacing to me because Im going insane:

I'm aware there are tabs, this is due to Notepad++

There is a setting for that in Notepad++

I'll be searching for that tomorrow.