ansible loop over shell command output

Question

I am learning ansible and I would like to know how to iterate of the results of a shell command. Here is what I have tried. I have this playbook:

[root@d61311ae17e2 /]# cat loop.yaml
---
- name: Loop Example
  hosts: localhost
  tasks:
    - name:
      command: cat /vcs.txt
      register: vcs
    - name: Nonsense to demo loop
      template:
         src: /foo.j2
         dest: /foo.{{ item.1 }}
      with_indexed_items: "{{ vcs }}"

The file /vcs.txt contains this:

[root@d61311ae17e2 /]# cat vcs.txt
vc-one
vc-two
vc-three
vc-four

What I was hoping would happen was the creation of four files: foo.vc-one, foo.vc-two, foo.vc-three and foo.vc-four. But what happens instead when I run ansible-playbook loop.yaml is this:

PLAY [Loop Example] *********************************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [Gathering Facts] ******************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [127.0.0.1]

TASK [command] **************************************************************************************************************************************************
changed: [127.0.0.1]

TASK [Nonsense to demo loop] ************************************************************************************************************************************
fatal: [127.0.0.1]: FAILED! => {"msg": "with_indexed_items expects a list"}
        to retry, use: --limit @/loop.retry

PLAY RECAP ******************************************************************************************************************************************************
127.0.0.1                  : ok=2    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=1

Red Cricket · Accepted Answer · 2018-12-22 05:22:56Z

3

I needed to do this with_indexed_items: "{{ vcs.stdout.split('\n')}}"

answered Dec 22, 2018 at 5:22

Red Cricket

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Comments

Benjamin Eskola · Accepted Answer · 2022-11-29 10:57:10Z

1

If you need stdout on a line-by-line basis, with_indexed_items: "{{ vcs.stdout_lines }}" is equivalent to .split('\n') and likely simpler/clearer.

answered Nov 29, 2022 at 10:57

Benjamin Eskola

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