# ansible replace with\_items prepends the letter 'u'

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-replace-with-items-prepends-the-letter-u/27459>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [May 4, 2018, 3:55pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-replace-with-items-prepends-the-letter-u/27459 "2018-05-04T15:55:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![expectant.sprite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/aeb1de/32.png) [@expectant.sprite](https://forum.ansible.com/u/expectant.sprite)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 3:55pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-replace-with-items-prepends-the-letter-u/27459/1 "2018-05-04T15:55:19Z")

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I’m trying to use the replace module to update SSL ciphers and seem to be running into a Unicode issue.

The code:

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**Author:** ![tkuratom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@tkuratom](https://forum.ansible.com/u/tkuratom)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 4:04pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-replace-with-items-prepends-the-letter-u/27459/2 "2018-05-04T16:04:46Z")

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Is it showing up in your sshd\_config file or just in the display of what each item was?

-Toshio

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**Author:** ![expectant.sprite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/aeb1de/32.png) [@expectant.sprite](https://forum.ansible.com/u/expectant.sprite)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 4:09pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-replace-with-items-prepends-the-letter-u/27459/3 "2018-05-04T16:09:15Z")

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I’m not sure what I was thinking but this has nothing to do with the ‘u’ - the code is working just as expected since these lines do not yet exist. What I needed to use was lineinfile, not replace. Changes highlighted below and it’s working now.