Strewth!

A while back I was writing some custom server side functions to interrogate an inventory system for live information about other nodes. The returned data can be used to dynamically configure all sorts of settings that rely on other nodes: DNS resolvers, LDAP servers, Ganglia forwarders, etc.

Returning an array of nodes I could iterate a Define multiple times to create a set of resources. Here’s an example creating a set of Host resources for all of my DNS resolvers:

$mynameservers = find_nearest_nodes("puppetclass == dns::resolver")
# => ['ns1.domain.tld','ns2.domain.tld']
define hostentry() {
    $entry_ip = find_node_fact($name, "ipaddress")
    $entry_hostname = find_node_fact($name, "hostname")
    host{ $name: ip => $entry_ip, host_aliases => $entry_hostname }
}
hostentry { $mynameservers }

The two lookups in the define bothered me a bit. Assuming each lookup had some overhead latency that could add up. Why not simply return a hash with all the information i needed?

$myhashes = find_nearest_nodes("puppetclass == dns::resolver", ['ipaddress', 'hostname'])
# => [ {"ns2.domain.tld"=>{"ipaddress"=>"10.0.0.1", "hostname"=>"ns2"}}, {"ns1.domain.tld"=>{"ipaddress"=>"192.168.0.1", "hostname"=>"ns1"}} ]

But this array of hashes isn’t very useful. Each array entry is passed as $name to the target resource. Native resource types like File or Host will expect a string as the $name. Passing them the hash object won’t do what you want, I’m guessing it’d be collapsed in to a string with #to_s.

We can solve that though by wrapping the native type with a defined type . Inside the define you’ll be able to access the subkeys of $name like a normal hash. This allows you to pass your hash values as parameters to the actual resource:

$myhashes = find_nearest_nodes("puppetclass == dns::resolver", ['ipaddress', 'hostname'])
# =>  [ {"ns2.domain.tld"=>{"ipaddress"=>"10.0.0.1", "hostname"=>"ns2"}}, {"ns1.domain.tld"=>{"ipaddress"=>"192.168.0.1", "hostname"=>"ns1"}} ]
 
define hostentry() {
    # $name looks like {"ns2.domain.tld"=>{"ipaddress"=>"10.0.0.1", "hostname"=>"ns2"}}
    host{ $name: ip => $name[ipaddress], host_aliases => $name[hostname] }
}
 
hostentry{ $myhashes: }

EDIT: 4/7/11
Sorry #puppet, I’ve updated that last example. I’d written this post from memory and obviously didnt try the examples. $myhashes is an Array of Hashes, not HoH, and I missed the : when calling the hostentry define.
And if you think you want to do this, don’t. Drop in to a template or Ruby DSL. Usage is non obvious and relies on undefined behavior with namevar. I wouldn’t be surprised if it breaks horribly in a point release (though it works in 2.6.7).