Warning about variable with reserved name: name

[denngie]

SUMMARY

Hi, I am getting warning messages about the variable name being used and that it is a reserved name.

If I change the properties to not include name, configure hostnames to use config.name and comment out these lines the warning disappears

vmware.vmware/plugins/inventory/vms.py

Lines 308 to 309 in eb89d1c

	if "name" not in properties_param:
	properties_param.append("name")

ISSUE TYPE

• Bug Report

COMPONENT NAME

vms

ANSIBLE VERSION

ansible [core 2.17.14]
  config file = /home/dennis/my-ansible-stuff/ansible.cfg
  configured module search path = ['/home/dennis/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /home/dennis/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/ansible
  ansible collection location = /home/dennis/.ansible/collections:/usr/share/ansible/collections
  executable location = /home/dennis/.local/bin/ansible
  python version = 3.10.6 (main, Nov 14 2022, 16:10:14) [GCC 11.3.0] (/usr/bin/python3)
  jinja version = 3.1.2
  libyaml = True

COLLECTION VERSION

# /home/dennis/.ansible/collections/ansible_collections
Collection    Version
------------- -------
vmware.vmware 2.4.0

# /home/dennis/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/ansible_collections
Collection    Version
------------- -------
vmware.vmware 1.7.1

CONFIGURATION

CALLBACKS_ENABLED(/home/dennis/my-ansible-stuff/ansible.cfg) = ['profile_tasks']
CONFIG_FILE() = /home/dennis/my-ansible-stuff/ansible.cfg
DEFAULT_FORKS(/home/dennis/my-ansible-stuff/ansible.cfg) = 16
DEFAULT_HOST_LIST(/home/dennis/my-ansible-stuff/ansible.cfg) = ['/home/dennis/.ansible/inventory']
DEFAULT_LOAD_CALLBACK_PLUGINS(/home/dennis/my-ansible-stuff/ansible.cfg) = True
DEFAULT_STDOUT_CALLBACK(/home/dennis/my-ansible-stuff/ansible.cfg) = yaml
DISPLAY_SKIPPED_HOSTS(/home/dennis/my-ansible-stuff/ansible.cfg) = False
HOST_KEY_CHECKING(/home/dennis/my-ansible-stuff/ansible.cfg) = False
INTERPRETER_PYTHON(/home/dennis/my-ansible-stuff/ansible.cfg) = auto_silent
RETRY_FILES_ENABLED(/home/dennis/my-ansible-stuff/ansible.cfg) = False

OS / ENVIRONMENT

WSL Ubuntu 22.04

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

Use the simple config example from vmware.vmware.vms but with properties modified to exclude name and change hostname to config.name and do ansible -m debug -a var=name Photon

plugin: vmware.vmware.vms
hostname: 10.65.223.31
username: administrator@vsphere.local
password: Esxi@123$%
validate_certs: false
properties: ["config.cpuHotAddEnabled", "config.cpuHotRemoveEnabled", "config.instanceUuid", "config.hardware.numCPU", "config.name", "config.template", "config.uuid", "guest.hostName", "guest.ipAddress", "guest.guestId", "guest.guestState", "runtime.maxMemoryUsage", "customValue", "summary.runtime.powerState", "config.guestId"]
hostnames:
  - config.name

EXPECTED RESULTS

ansible -m debug -a var=name Photon

PLAY [Ansible Ad-Hoc] **************************************************************************************************
Friday 31 October 2025  19:16:38 +0100 (0:00:00.020)       0:00:00.020 ********

TASK [debug] ***********************************************************************************************************
ok: [Photon] =>
  name: VARIABLE IS NOT DEFINED!

PLAY RECAP *************************************************************************************************************
Photon                     : ok=1    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0

Friday 31 October 2025  19:16:38 +0100 (0:00:00.031)       0:00:00.051 ********
===============================================================================
debug ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0.03s

ACTUAL RESULTS

dennis@Dennis-PC:~/my-ansible-stuff$ ansible -m debug -a var=name Photon

PLAY [Ansible Ad-Hoc] **************************************************************************************************
[WARNING]: Found variable using reserved name: name
Friday 31 October 2025  19:15:46 +0100 (0:00:00.017)       0:00:00.017 ********

TASK [debug] ***********************************************************************************************************
ok: [Photon] =>
  name: Photon

PLAY RECAP *************************************************************************************************************
Photon                     : ok=1    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0

Friday 31 October 2025  19:15:46 +0100 (0:00:00.031)       0:00:00.049 ********
===============================================================================
debug ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0.03s

[mikemorency]

This is a known warning. tags has a similar warning.

Changing these to use a non-reserved variable will likely take awhile, since they are widely used. Additionally, since this is a warning that is not actually causing issues I would argue it is low priority.

All in all, it is good to document these for others but I am not sure what timeline you can expect these warnings to be removed