Array variable inside .gitlab-ci.yml yaml

Question

I want to use arrays in variables of my gitlab ci/cd yml file, something like that:

variables:
    myarrray: ['abc', 'dcef' ]
....
script: |
    echo myarray[0]  myarray[1]

But Lint tells me that file is incorrect:

variables config should be a hash of key value pairs, value can be a hash

I've tried the next:

variables:
    arr[0]: 'abc'
    arr[1]: 'cde'
....
script: |
    echo $arr[0] $arr[1]

But build failed and prints out bash error:

bash: line 128: export: `arr[0]': not a valid identifier

Is there any way to use array variable in .gitlab-ci.yml file?

Underskirt

Answer 1

According to the docs, this is what you should be doing:

It is not possible to create a CI/CD variable that is an array of values, but you can use shell scripting techniques for similar behavior.

For example, you can store multiple variables separated by a space in a variable, then loop through the values with a script:

job1:
  variables:
    FOLDERS: src test docs
  script:
    - |
      for FOLDER in $FOLDERS
        do
          echo "The path is root/${FOLDER}"
        done

Economy

To extend on this further, environment variables, in general, cannot be arrays. So, to be clear: this is more a limitation of bash/environment variables than it is of GitLab CI. – Heraldic

In Windows cmd they can be... set arr[1]=a and then set arr[2]=b are valid and works fine – Underskirt

@Vasya When you issue set arr[1]=a and then arr[2]=b commands in Windows terminal it wont create an array, it will create two environment variables called arr[1] and arr[2] – Economy

Answer 2

After some investigations I found some surrogate solution. Perhaps It may be useful for somebody:

variables:
    # Name of using set
    targetType: 'test'

    # Variables set test
    X_test: 'TestValue'

    # Variables set dev
    X_dev: 'DevValue'

    # Name of variable from effective set
    X_curName: 'X_$targetType'

.....

script: |
    echo Variable X_ is ${!X_curName} # prints TestValue

Underskirt

Answer 3

Another approach you could follow is two use a matrix of jobs that will create a job per array entry.

deploystacks:
  stage: deploy
  parallel:
    matrix:
      - PROVIDER: aws
        STACK: [monitoring, app1]
      - PROVIDER: gcp
        STACK: [data]
  tags:
    - ${PROVIDER}-${STACK}

Here is the Gitlab docs regarding matrix https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/jobs/job_control.html#run-a-one-dimensional-matrix-of-parallel-jobs

Headlock

Answer 4

To expand Bernardo Duarte answer:
Variables can also be set this way:

job1:
  variables:
    FOLDERS:
      src
      test
      docs
      another_folder
  script:
    - |
      for FOLDER in $FOLDERS
        do
          echo "The path is root/${FOLDER}"
        done

This however dowes not work as expected ATM:

test:
  variables:
    stuff:
      this
      that
      another\ one
      "also another one"
  script:
    - |
      for s in $stuff; do
        echo test: $s
      done

result:

...
Executing "step_script" stage of the job script
$ for s in $stuff; do # collapsed multi-line command
test: this
test: that
test: another\
test: one
test: "also
test: another
test: one"
Cleaning up project directory and file based variables
Job succeeded

Panto