Ansible: get specific attribute value from json output - json

Question

I have the following Ansible task:
tasks:
- name: ensure instances are running
ec2:
aws_access_key: "{{aws_access_key}}"
aws_secret_key: "{{aws_secret_key}}"
...
user_data: "{{ lookup('template', 'userdata.txt.j2') }}"
register: ec2_result
- debug:
msg: "{{ ec2_result }}"
- set_fact:
win_instance_id: "{{ ec2_result | json_query('tagged_instances[*].id') }}"
The output:
TASK [debug] ***************
ok: [localhost] => {
"msg": {
"changed": false,
"failed": false,
"instance_ids": null,
"instances": [],
"tagged_instances": [
{
"ami_launch_index": "0",
"architecture": "x86_64",
"block_device_mapping": {
"/dev/sda1": {
"delete_on_termination": true,
"status": "attached",
"volume_id": "vol-01f217e489c681211"
}
},
"dns_name": "",
"ebs_optimized": false,
"groups": {
"sg-c63822ac": "WinRM RDP"
},
"hypervisor": "xen",
"id": "i-019c03c3e3929f76e",
"image_id": "ami-3204995d",
...
"tags": {
"Name": "Student01 _ Jumphost"
},
"tenancy": "default",
"virtualization_type": "hvm"
}
]
}
}
TASK [set_fact] ****************
ok: [localhost]
TASK [debug] ******************
ok: [localhost] => {
"msg": "The Windows Instance ID is: [u'i-019c03c3e3929f76e']"
}
As you can see, the instance ID is correct, but not well formated. Is there a way to convert this output into "human readable" output? Or is there any better way to parse the instance id from the ec2 task output?
Thanks!

Answer 1

It's not non-human readable format, but a list object in Python notation, because you query a list.
If you want a string, you should pass it through a first filter.
win_instance_id: "{{ ec2_result | json_query('tagged_instances[*].id') | first }}"
You can also access the value directly without json_query ([0] refers to the first element of a list):
win_instance_id: "{{ ec2_result.tagged_instances[0].id }}"