CODEWITHSUNDEEP
chef-infrachef-recipe
Roflmao711
Roflmao711

Reputation: 5

Randomly pick a key value from an array

Need some expertise help,

I'm trying to see if there is a way to randomly pick a attribute from an array doing a chef client run.

Example, I have this attribute

default['collectors_a'] = { a, b, c, d, e}

and In the recipe I want to randomly choose one of this element from the array.

Does anyone know how to go about it?

Thanks so much for helping out!!!!

Upvotes: 0

Views: 167

Answers (1)

coderanger
coderanger

Reputation: 54251

So a few issues, {...} is for a Hash, not an Array. In Ruby an Array literal looks like [...], like [1, 2, 3] or ["a", "b", "c"]. With that said, there is a method on the Array object to help with this, Array#sample will return a random object from the array. So you might want something like ["a", "b", "c"].sample. However remember that this will re-roll the selection every time Chef runs which is almost never what you want. If you want something randomized per server but consistent you could do this instead:

vals = ["a", "b", "c"]
default["whatever"] = vals[node["shard_seed"] % vals.length]

The shard_seed attribute comes from Ohai and is a consistent hash based on a number of inputs like the CPU ID and machine UUID.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions