support for erlang atom configuration values

[tedgin]

The auth_backends configuration value expects a list of erlang atoms. e.g. rabbit_auth_backend_internal, rabbit_auth_backend_ldap, etc. When attempting to use this role to define the auth_backends configuration value, it encodes the atoms in the list as strings.

Pretend this is our playbook.

---
- hosts: amqp-brokers
  roles:
     - role: jtyr.rabbitmq
       rabbitmq_config:
          - rabbit:
               - auth_backends:
                    - rabbit_auth_backend_internal

When run, this generates the following rabbitmq.config file.

%%
%% This file is managed by Ansible.
%% Do not edit this file manually.
%% Any changes will be automatically reverted.
%%

[
  {rabbit, [
      {auth_backends, [
        "rabbit_auth_backend_internal"
      ]}
  ]}
].

The quoted "rabbit_auth_backend_internal" names causes authentication to error out.

Please add support to this role for atom configuration values.

I would be willing to help out with this, if you want. I suspect this will require some of encoding hint being needed in the playbook to tell the encoder that the relevant value is an atom and not a string.

[jtyr]

Thanks for reporting this issue. The solution requires to enhance the erlang macro:

--- a/macros/erlang_encode_macro.j2
+++ b/macros/erlang_encode_macro.j2
@@ -51,7 +51,11 @@
   {%- elif item is string %}
     {#- The item is a string -#}

-    {{ '"' ~ item ~ '"' }}
+    {%- if item[0] == ':' -%}
+      {{ item[1:] }}
+    {%- else -%}
+      {{ '"' ~ item ~ '"' }}
+    {%- endif -%}

   {%- else %}
     {#- The item is a list -#}

Then if you add : at the beginning of the rabbit_auth_backend_internal it shouldn't quote it.

Please let me know if that works for you and I will submit a pull request for the erlang macro.

[tedgin]

That works well for me. Thanks!