Puppet users - Mar 2014 - stdlib: result from join_keys_to_values() is unstable

Hi there,

Say I have a hash like {a=>'1',b=>'2'} and I'd like to
get a string that
looks like "a=1,b=2". I tried using a combination of
join_keys_to_values() and join() and the result looked correct, but was
unstable. That unstability is because hashes are not always "sorted"
the
same way.

An unstable string means that the config file in which I use it gets
modified for no reason from time to time and this triggers an
unnecessary service refresh.

I'm currently using an inline template to achieve what I want, since
with ruby I can use h.sort.map to always get results in the same order
from a hash "h".

Thing is, stdlib's sort() function only accepts strings or arrays.


Is there a way to get a "stable" string with current means?

Otherwise, would it be an acceptable idea to add support for hashes in
sort() ?

-- 
Gabriel Filion