Skip to content

Loops

Automatiqal v0.4+

Task can be executed multiple times by using loop property. For example if the task is to create 3 tags then the following task can be written:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
- name: Create tags
  operation: tag.create
  loop:
    values:
      - Some name 1
      - Some name 2
      - Some name 3
  details:
    - name: { { item } }

Automatiqal will loop through the values, defined in the loop property and will run the same operation but replacing {{ item }} with the currently looped value.

Values

loop property can contain either:

  • array of mixed string, numbers or boolean
  • array of objects in format key: value, where value can be mix of string, number or boolean

Examples:

1
2
3
4
5
loop:
  values:
    - some name 1
    - 12345
    - true

1
2
3
4
5
loop:
  values:
    - key: value
    - key: 12345
    - key: true

The following is NOT allowed since it will mix primitive values and objects:

1
2
3
4
5
loop:
  values:
    - some name 1
    - 12345
    - key: some value

Accessing values

  • {{ item }} - will be replaced with the current loop value
  • {{ index }} - will be replaced with the current index value (First element will be 1)
  • {{ item.<key> }} - when using objects in the loop property it will be replaced with the <key> value of the currently looped element. For example:
 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
- name: Create tags
  operation: tag.create
  loop:
    values:
      - name: Some name 1
        another: something 4
      - name: Some name 2
        another: something 5
      - name: Some name 3
        another: something 6
  details:
    - name: { { item.name } }

While looping Automatiqal will use the value for the name property to replace item.name with.

Context

The loop syntax can be used anywhere in the task. And if object with multiple keys are used then different keys can be used for different purpose.

For example - if we have to publish multiple apps and each app should be published in a different stream then our task can look like:

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
- name: Publish apps
  operation: app.publish
  filter: id eq {{ item.appId }}
  loop:
    values:
      - appId: 11111111-1111-1111-1111-11111111111
        appNewName: New app name
        stream: Some stream
      - appId: 22222222-2222-2222-2222-22222222222
        appNewName: Another new app name
        stream: Another stream
  details:
    stream: { { item.stream } }
    name: { { item.appNewName } }

Task results

Since tasks with a loop are ran multiple times then the result of these will be the combined result from all the runs.

In our example above if we want to perform another task, that us using the result from Publish apps as a source, then this task will be performed on both published apps.

Concurrency

By default the loops are executed in sequence. There is a task option that can overwrite this behavior and run the loops in parallel:

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
- name: Create some tags
  operation: tag.create
  loop:
    values:
      - Some tag 1
      - Some tag 2
      - Some tag 3
  details:
    - name: { { item } }
  options:
    loopParallel: true

When loopParallel options is explicitly set to true then the loops will be ran in parallel.

External files

Loop values can be provided by loading external files:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
- name: Create some tags
  operation: tag.create
  loop:
    location: c:\some\path\to\file.csv
    format: csv
  details:
    - name: { { item } }
  options:
    loopParallel: true

The example above will read the specified csv file and will loop through it's rows. If the csv have multiple columns then the {{ item.<key> }} syntax can be used.

Formats

At the moment only 3 file formats are supported: csv, json and yaml

CSV files

  • can have multiple columns
  • should be comma separated
  • UTF-8 encoded

JSON files

  • contains json array
  • UTF-8 encoded

YAML files

  • contains array
  • UTF-8 encoded

Pause

If needed to pause between the iterations we can use the pause property:

1
2
3
4
5
6
loop:
  pause: 2.5
  values:
    - some name 1
    - 12345
    - true

In the example above, after each iteration there will be 2.5 seconds pause.