how to use Ansible meta module to halt playbook execution upon task Failure.

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1

I wish to search for a string (“AC245”) in all files with extension *.db under /home/examples directory.

If the string is found I wish to abort the play immediately marking the playbook as FAILED.

Apart from aborting the play using “meta: end_play” I was able to achieve everything.

Can you help suggest how can I update my current code to add the end_play feature as soon as the string is found in any *.db file ?

---
- name: "Find the details here "

hosts: localhost
any_errors_fatal: true
serial: 1
tasks:
- name: Ansible find files multiple patterns examples
find:
paths: /home/examples
patterns: "*.db"
recurse: yes
register: files_matched

- name: Search for Number in the matched files
command: grep -i {{ myString }} {{ item.path }}
register: command_result
failed_when: command_result.rc == 0
with_items:
- "{{ files_matched.files }}"

You can run the above find.yml using this command: ansible-playbook find.yml -e “myString=AC245”

2

If you want to use meta it's simple but will not mark the play as failed, as far as I know there's no explicit way to do that with meta:

- name: abort if string was found
  meta: end_play
  when: command is failed

It might be better to try the fail module since it will return the failed state you want:

- name: fail if string was found
  fail:
    msg: string was found!
  when: command is failed