Sort dict according to specific value in Ansible

Question

I have the following dictionary set as a variable in Ansible:

my_users:
  name1:
    value: some_value1
    id: 99
    type: some_type1
  name2:
    value: some_value2
    id: 55
    type: some_type2
  name3:
    value: some_value3
    id: 101
    type: some_type3

I would like to sort it according to the id field and print it again. I have tried using dictsort and chosing the by value option but I couldn't find a way to specify a specific value on which to sort.

  tasks:
    - debug:
        msg: "{{ item }}"
      with_items: "{{ my_users | dictsort(false, 'value') }}"

Answer 1

Jinja2 dictsort works on dictionaries (flat) and allows for either sorting by a key or value (that's the meaning of 'value' argument ― it is a switch, not a name of a key in a nested dictionary).

You can write a simple filter plugin in Python:

#!/usr/bin/python
class FilterModule(object):
    def filters(self):
        return {
            'sortbysubkey': self.sortbysubkey,
        }

    def sortbysubkey(self, dict_to_sort, sorting_key):
        return sorted(dict_to_sort.items(), key=lambda x: x[1][sorting_key])