argument and yaml parsing type errors

[arthurlm44]

Since upgrading to helm 2.6.1, from 2.5.1 I've been encountering this issue:

Error: render error in "instastage/templates/service.yaml": template: instastage/templates/service.yaml:1:5: executing "instastage/templates/service.yaml" at <eq .Values.replicaCo...>: error calling eq: incompatible types for comparison

The helm command is:

helm install --debug --dry-run --set replicaCount=1,anotherVar=someothervalue ~/workspace/charts/mychart

and the chart starts with:

{{if eq .Values.replicaCount 1.0}}

This worked fine in 2.5.1 but is broken in 2.6.1

I've tried from file via -f flag but get the same type error.

Strings are parsed fine, but integers (which used to be automatically converted to floats, which in itself was a bug) are no longer coming in as either integers or floats and vice-versa.

I've attempted to pass ints, and floats and have attempted int and float comparison to no avail.

[bacongobbler]

To give others some background on why the chart uses a float-point value instead of an int, it's due to some issues with the --set parser with ints being converted to scientific notation in some cases as seen in #1707.

We've attempted a multitude of --set attempts over slack with @arthurlm44 yesterday afternoon:

--set replicaCount=1
--set replicaCount=1.0
--set replicaCount="1.0"
--set replicaCount=1\.0
--set replicaCount="1\.0"
--set replicaCount=\"1.0\"

None of the above worked. Regardless of the argument whether replica count should be an integer or not, we should find a way to parse floating point values and document it.

The ugly workaround is to use a literal string for now.

{{ if eq .Values.replicaCount "one" -}}
replicas: 1
{{- else -}}
replicas: 0
{{- end }}

It's funny to think how only 2 and a third pods would be deployed, though. 😄

[hobti01]

I have a related issue without using set, Helm v2.6.2. Thanks for the hints here to get a workaround.

Does not work:
values.yaml

replicas: 1

templates/test.yaml

{{- if gt .Values.replicas 1 }}
Greater than one
{{- end }}

Output:

$ helm install --debug --dry-run my-chart
...
Error: render error in "my-chart/templates/test.yaml": template: my-chart/templates/test.yaml:1:7: executing "my-chart/templates/test.yaml" at <gt .Values.replicas ...>: error calling gt: incompatible types for comparison

Does work:
values.yaml

replicas: 2

templates/test.yaml

{{- if gt .Values.replicas 1.0 }}
Greater than one
{{- end }}

$ helm install --debug --dry-run my-chart
...
---
# Source: my-chart/templates/test.yaml

Greater than one

[ljnelson]

This just occurred to me out of the blue and I thought I'd at least capture it here. Would something like this work:

--set replicaCount="!!int '1.0'"

…? !!int applied to a YAML scalar is supposed to coerce it.

[bacongobbler]

Assuming https://github.com/ghodss/yaml supports it, yes. Most parsers don't support every part of the YAML spec.

[fejta-bot]

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[so0k]

Still facing this issue, helm 2.7.2 - workaround using float works

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[cgebe]

same as @hobti01

issue still occurs - v2.9.0:

Error: render error in "server/templates/deployment.yaml": template: server/templates/deployment.yaml:36:7: executing "server/templates/deployment.yaml" at <gt .Values.replicaCo...>: error calling gt: incompatible types for comparison

{{- if gt .Values.replicaCount 1 }}
                 ...
{{- end}}

[ljnelson]

Out of curiosity, could you try --set replicaCount="!!int '1'"?

[artushin]

To clarify the workaround from @so0k, if doing something like {{- if eq .Values.replicas 1.0 }}, the second arg should be the float so that you don't have to cast .Values.replicas.

[ghost]

I got around this by piping the variables to int64.

For instance, to check whether my hpa's max number of replicas was less than or equal to the number of credentials I had, I did this:

{{ le (.Values.hpa.maxReplicas | int64) (len .Values.app.credentials | int64) }}

This workaround isn't pretty, but it works for me.

[bacongobbler]

given that there hasn't been any activity in the last 3 years to address this since it was first opened, I'm going to close this as community members have found workarounds to the issue, and that seems to solve the problem.