Intrinsic function to split strings¶

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/heat/+spec/str-split

From HOT 2014-10-16 we no longer support the AWS compatible Fn::Split intrinsic function in HOT templates, which means there’s no way to split a string into a list of components by delimiter.

Problem description¶

The current use case is to avoid doing this in TripleO templates, but it’s likely a generally useful addition:

ip_subnet:
  # FIXME: this assumes a 2 digit subnet CIDR (need more heat functions?)
  description: IP/Subnet CIDR for the storage network IP
  value:
        list_join:
          - ''
          - - {get_attr: [StoragePort, fixed_ips, 0, ip_address]}
            - '/'
            - {get_attr: [StoragePort, subnets, 0, cidr, -2]}
            - {get_attr: [StoragePort, subnets, 0, cidr, -1]}

This is both fragile and cumbersome, it’d be better to allow easily splitting on the “/” delimiter.

The second use-case is to enable joining of two (or more) lists together:

parameters:
  ExtraConfig:
    type: json
    default: []

resources:
  type: OS::Heat::StructuredConfig
  properties:
    group: os-apply-config
    config:
      hiera:
        hierarchy:
          - controller
          - object
          - ceph
          - common
          - {get_param: ExtraConfig}

Here, the desired behavior is to merge/append the contents of the ExtraConfig parameter, which may be either json or comma_delimited_list type, such that the “hierarchy” list contains both the hard-coded items and whatever list is provided via ExtraConfig.

Proposed change¶

Add a str_split intrinsic function, such that the first example becomes:

list_join:
- ''
- - {get_attr: [StoragePort, fixed_ips, 0, ip_address]}
  - '/'
  - {str_split: ['/', {get_attr: [StoragePort, subnets, 0, cidr]}, 1]}

This means we can strip the subnet mask from the CIDR without hard-coded assumptions around it always being 2 digits - path based lookup by index will be supported, e.g the same syntax as get_attr and get_param, so when an index is specified then the list item at that index is returned, otherwise the entire list is returned. This is consistent with current get_attr behavior and avoids forcing the user to use Fn::Select to extract a list item.

To enable the second use-case, we can use the new str_split function, with an enhanced version of list_join which can optionally take a list of lists, e.g it’s capable of joining multiple lists on a delimiter:

config:
  hiera:
    hierarchy:
      str_split:
      - ','
      - list_join:
        - ','
        - - controller
          - object
          - ceph
          - common
        - {get_param: ExtraConfig}

Alternatives¶

For the list merging I was thinking we could use the YAML << merge directive, but some experiements indicate this will only merge maps, not lists which are required in this case.

Implementation¶

Assignee(s)¶

Primary assignee:: shardy

Milestones¶

Target Milestone for completion:: liberty-1

Work Items¶

Changes to engine: - Bump HOT template version for Liberty - Enhance list_join to support optionally joining lists of lists. - Add a new str_split function with associated tests.

Documentation changes:

Update HOT specification as part of the commits above.

Dependencies¶

None

Intrinsic function to split strings