[chef] Re: Re: Re: Re: Automate the attributes used in chef

[Christine Draper < >]

I've been heading tentatively down this path (code generation is always a slippery slope) with part of the function in the knife-topo plugin for managing topologies from a JSON file. I wanted to be able to define properties like software versions along with runlists and other node attributes in a single JSON file so they could be easily put in version control and updated. The plugin has basic conditional support (value of a single node property) and nested attributes. Lots of ways I'd like to enhance it, of course...

On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 12:09 PM, Mark Harrison < " target="_blank"> > wrote:

If you have a JSON file with nested attributes, then you'll need to
modify the script to walk the tree and generate attributes as
appropriate. It all depends on what you have in the json file and what
you want the output to look like. The script can be tweaked as needed
to do that. This idea is also based on already having a json file that
you would rather not manually type out an attributes file for. If you
don't have that, then just write the attributes file out, complete
with conditionals, comments and so on.

On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 12:24 PM, Walter Dolce < "> > wrote:
> How would you deal complex nested attribute trees, conditions, comments,
> etc?
>
> I'm not currently very experienced in Chef yet but this idea smells a bit to
> me.
> Would be nice to hear from experienced folks.
>
>
> On 22 July 2014 15:25, Mark Harrison < "> > wrote:
>>
>> A simple way would be to write a script that would read the json file
>> and generate an attributes file that you can put in place. Something
>> like the following would work:
>>
>> #!/usr/bin/env ruby
>> require 'json'
>> data = "JSON.parse(File.read(ARGV[0])) >> data.each { |k, v| puts "default['cookbookname']['#{k}'] = '#{v}'" }
>>
>> Change cookbookname as appropriate. And this assumes the json file is
>> a simple set of key value pairs. This prints out the file contents so
>> you would want to run it as 'myscript.rb >
>> cookbookname/attributes/default.rb', or you could change the script to
>> write out the attributes file directly.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 2:12 AM,  < "> > wrote:
>> > Hi
>> >
>> > I want to automate the attributes file (default.rb) inside the cookbook.
>> > I have
>> > a .json file (which is generated by another tool), with the details of
>> > the
>> > attribute values that should be given to the cookbook. Please suggest me
>> > the
>> > best method to achieve this goal.
>> >
>> > Thank you.
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> walter dolce | developer
> twitter @walterdolce
> skype walter.dolce
> tel +39 (0) 327 597 9830
>