# FYI: What is PWD when executed as host:localhost vs delegate\_to vs local\_action ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [June 25, 2014, 10:27pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/fyi-what-is-pwd-when-executed-as-host-localhost-vs-delegate-to-vs-local-action/15552 "2014-06-25T22:27:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Larry\_Fast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b3f665/32.png) [@Larry\_Fast](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Larry_Fast)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 10:27pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/fyi-what-is-pwd-when-executed-as-host-localhost-vs-delegate-to-vs-local-action/15552/1 "2014-06-25T22:27:04Z")
Thought I’d share some gory details I just worked through. I was writing a self-check playbook and wanted to look at files in the playbook directory. Note that a module would probably solve my problem more effectively than PB code but here’s what I found… 1. vars.playbook\_dir=‘.’ - as you’ll see this doesn’t necessarily take you to the right location 2. vars.inventory\_dir= - this is better but only if inventory\_dir=playbook\_dir So my attempts to use #1 went south until I discovered the following variations. As stated in the documentation, local\_action is an alias for delegate\_to: localhost or 127.0.0.1. What’s not stated is that “delegate\_to localhost” is treated as a special case. delegate\_to any-other-server will work the same as hosts: any-other-server - hosts: localhost ssh\_user: hi\_there tasks: - name: pwd\_localhost command: pwd =\> /home/hi\_there register: pwd\_localhost - name: pwd\_delegate\_dns command: pwd =\> /home/hi\_there delegate\_to: dns\_of\_localhost register: pwd\_delegate\_dns - name: pwd\_delegate\_localhost command: pwd =\> delegate\_to: localhost register: pwd\_delegate\_localhost - name: pwd\_local\_action local\_action: command pwd =\> register: pwd\_local\_action - name: pwd\_127 command: pwd =\> delegate\_to: 127.0.0.1 register: pwd\_127 ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan1)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 10:41pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/fyi-what-is-pwd-when-executed-as-host-localhost-vs-delegate-to-vs-local-action/15552/2 "2014-06-25T22:41:10Z")
No offense intended, but care to relate what you found in words and what you mean by “a special case” ? I also don’t know what you mean by “vars.playbook\_dir” with the dot notation, which is difficult because I wrote the program 🙂