String does not convert to integer in Ansible Playbook

December 7, 2021

Sorry if this already being asked before, but i can’t find any solution that match my problem..

I’m trying to convert the string that i have to integer:

- hosts: myhost
  vars:
    - variable1: 15
    - variable2: "15"
    - variable3: "{{ variable2 | int }}"

I tried to use variable2 (string) for calculation, so i convert it to int in variable3. But it failed with error message "Unexpected templating type error occurred on ({{ variable3 + 1 }}): coercing to Unicode: need string or buffer, int found"

So, i tried to use type_debug to find out each type of the 3 variable listed.

variable1 is int
variable2 is ansibleunicode
variable3 is unicode

I don’t understand the difference between ansibleunicode and unicode or why it is listed as unicode instead of integer when i already convert it from string to integer using | int. What should I do?

>Solution :

Try the following.

- hosts: myhost
  vars:
    - variable1: 15
    - variable2: "15"

  tasks:
  - name: test 
    debug: msg="{{ variable2 | int + 1}}"
    delegate_to: localhost

output:

TASK [test] ***********************************************************************************************************************
ok: [remote -> localhost] => {
    "msg": "16"
}