[chef] Search problem

[Tom Hughes < >]

I have a strange problem with duplicate attributes appearing on a node 
returned from a search when that is the node currently being processed.

The setup is that I have an attribute which is an array of hashes and 
the basic details are defined in a role which gives the attribute a 
value which is an array of two hashes.

There is then a recipe which adds extra details to the two hashes which 
are computed from the entries defined by the role so by the time the 
chef run finishes and the attributes are submitted back to the server 
the hashes are fully populated.

Now if I do a search in a recipe and get a set of nodes back then I find 
that for most nodes in the result I have the fully populated hashes that 
I expect, but if the search result includes the node currently being 
processed the instead of two entries in the array there are four - two 
fully populated ones (presumably from the last run) and two partially 
populated ones which only have the values set by the role.

This is true even if the recipe that fills in the extra values has 
already been run.

I've looked at the chef source and as far as I can see all the data on a 
node returned by a search has come from the server, so I don't 
understand why I am seeing the partially populated hashes as I thought 
the new attributes weren't sent to the server until the end of the run?

Any ideas what is going on, or how I can avoid getting these duplicates?

Thanks,

Tom

--
Tom Hughes 
(
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http://compton.nu/