Job config: add an element to an existing list of files

Question

I'm trying to work with list variables in ZUUL jobs to avoid duplicating definitions of file exclusion patterns. Now I have a job definition that looks like this:

- job:
name: base-job
vars:
  my_set_of_files: &myFileSet
    - ^.README.*
    - ^.*.md

- job:
    name: foo
    parent: base-job
    irrelevant_files: *myFileSet

- job:
    name: bar
    parent: base-job
    irrelevant_files: *myFileSet
      - *.xml

But while 'foo' works nicely, I don't seem to be able to add another element for my 'bar' job.

How can I reuse, but slightly modify the list 'myFileSet' in another job config?

Answer 1

After some more investigation I discovered that referencing a list is a yaml feature, not a ZUUL feature.

The same problem has already been discussed e.g. here: Is there YAML syntax for sharing part of a list or map? and here: How to merge YAML arrays?

Unfortunately, there is no native solution. The links above are also discussing notation solutions that are based on using a custom parser, which is not an option within ZUUL. So it does not seem to be possible as such.

Instead, I will either defien multiple variants of this list, or define the irrelevant files explicitly.