Puppet users - Sep 2012 - Problem with hiera arrays not obeying the hierachy

Versions: puppet 2.7.18, hiera 0.3.0

I have encountered a problem that is completely counter intuitive to how I 
thought hiera was meant to work. I have three levels in my hierarchy in the 
following order:
- <node>.yaml   (specific to the host)
- <datacentre>.yaml   (we have multiple sites, this is info specific to
the
site)
- common.yaml   (applies to everything)

I noticed this problem while working round a DNS problem, needless to say I 
had the following (ip addresses changes to protect the innocent) in the 
<datacentre>.yaml:

dns_servers:
  - ''1.1.1.1''
  - ''2.2.2.2''

I wanted a specific host to use different DNS so in the <node>.yaml I
added:

dns_servers:
  - ''3.3.3.3''

Now, when I do a hiera_array(''dns_servers'') I would expect
that the
original array (1.1.1.1 and 2.2.2.2) would be overwritten with a single 
value (3.3.3.3)...

As it turned out is concatenated the two arrays together, giving me 
(1.1.1.1 and 2.2.2.2 and 3.3.3.3). Non-plussed I added another entry to the 
common.yaml (4.4.4.4) and lo and behold it added that in as well giving 
me  (1.1.1.1 and 2.2.2.2 and 3.3.3.3 and 4.4.4.4).

I really did assume from the documentation that the hierarchy would be 
obeyed and both <datacentre>.yaml and common.yaml would be ignored ... or 
have I misunderstood how the system works?

Thanks
Josh 

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...my hiera.conf since it would probably help. %{datacentre} is a custom 
fact that is set at build time:

---
:hierarchy:
  - node/%{hostname}
  - common/%{datacentre}
  - common/common
:backends:
  - yaml
  - puppet
:yaml:
  :datadir: ''/local/puppet/env/%{environment}/hieradata''
:puppet:
  :datasource: data

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The hiera function works as you described and supports strings, arrays and
hashes. The hiera_array and hiera_hash functions build additive arrays and
hashes that include the values of all matching variables across the entire
hierarchy. For your use case you should use hiera()  instead of
hiera_array().
On Sep 3, 2012 8:42 AM, "Josh" <josh@chickenmonkey.co.uk> wrote:
> ...my hiera.conf since it would probably help. %{datacentre} is a custom
> fact that is set at build time:
>
> ---
> :hierarchy:
>   - node/%{hostname}
>   - common/%{datacentre}
>   - common/common
> :backends:
>   - yaml
>   - puppet
> :yaml:
>   :datadir: ''/local/puppet/env/%{environment}/hieradata''
> :puppet:
>   :datasource: data
>
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On Monday, September 3, 2012 5:11:23 PM UTC+1, Aaron Grewell
wrote:
>
> The hiera function works as you described and supports strings, arrays and 
> hashes. The hiera_array and hiera_hash functions build additive arrays and 
> hashes that include the values of all matching variables across the entire 
> hierarchy. For your use case you should use hiera()  instead of 
> hiera_array()
>
Really, thats brilliant cheers. Not only does that fix my problem but I can 
remove a whole load of weird hacks I had in place merging hases together. I 
also upgraded to hiera 1.0 to try and fix so all good.

What is the behaviour regarding hash keys? Would a merged hash that ends up 
with a duplicate key take the value from higher up the hierarchy?

Thanks again,
Josh

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On Tuesday, September 4, 2012 9:10:57 AM UTC+1, Josh
wrote:
>
> What is the behaviour regarding hash keys? Would a merged hash that ends 
> up with a duplicate key take the value from higher up the hierarchy
>
Have answered my own question. The answer to this is yes (for the benefit 
of people who come across this post in future)

Josh 

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I believe hiera_array() collects and provides an array of all the relevant
elements up the entirety of the tree. To collect only the most relevant data
just use hiera()



On Sep 3, 2012, at 10:21 AM, Josh <josh@chickenmonkey.co.uk>
 wrote:
> Versions: puppet 2.7.18, hiera 0.3.0
>
> I have encountered a problem that is completely counter intuitive to how I
thought hiera was meant to work. I have three levels in my hierarchy in the
following order:
> - <node>.yaml   (specific to the host)
> - <datacentre>.yaml   (we have multiple sites, this is info specific
to the site)
> - common.yaml   (applies to everything)
>
> I noticed this problem while working round a DNS problem, needless to say I
had the following (ip addresses changes to protect the innocent) in the
<datacentre>.yaml:
>
> dns_servers:
>   - ''1.1.1.1''
>   - ''2.2.2.2''
>
> I wanted a specific host to use different DNS so in the <node>.yaml I
added:
>
> dns_servers:
>   - ''3.3.3.3''
>
> Now, when I do a hiera_array(''dns_servers'') I would
expect that the original array (1.1.1.1 and 2.2.2.2) would be overwritten with a
single value (3.3.3.3)...
>
> As it turned out is concatenated the two arrays together, giving me
(1.1.1.1 and 2.2.2.2 and 3.3.3.3). Non-plussed I added another entry to the
common.yaml (4.4.4.4) and lo and behold it added that in as well giving me 
(1.1.1.1 and 2.2.2.2 and 3.3.3.3 and 4.4.4.4).
>
> I really did assume from the documentation that the hierarchy would be
obeyed and both <datacentre>.yaml and common.yaml would be ignored ... or
have I misunderstood how the system works?
>
> Thanks
> Josh
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Puppet Users" group.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/puppet-users/-/e-jCVgKPe6AJ.
> To post to this group, send email to puppet-users@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
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> For more options, visit this group at
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