# Lineinfile in v1.1 **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [April 4, 2013, 3:29am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625 "2013-04-04T03:29:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Kavin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@Kavin](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Kavin)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 3:29am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/1 "2013-04-04T03:29:12Z")
Hi, I followed lineinfile for sometime till will we had backrefs, but latest code seems to have changed so wanted to understand will this still work if i want to comment a line out ? ```auto lineinfile dest=/tmp/grub.conf state=present regexp='^(splashimage=.*)$' line="#" ``` ---
**Author:** ![PhilEv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@PhilEv](https://forum.ansible.com/u/PhilEv)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 7:37am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/2 "2013-04-04T07:37:13Z")
with 1.1 you have to - add backrefs=True when calling lineifile to activate the backrefs as the default is false. - use double \ so your line should become: ```auto lineinfile dest=/tmp/grub.conf backrefs=true state=present regexp='^(splashimage=.*)$' line="#\1" ``` HTH ---
**Author:** ![Serge\_van\_Ginderacht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@Serge\_van\_Ginderacht](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Serge_van_Ginderacht)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 7:54am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/3 "2013-04-04T07:54:50Z")
​This needs to be added to the docs. Serge​ ---
**Author:** ![PhilEv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@PhilEv](https://forum.ansible.com/u/PhilEv)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 8:56am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/4 "2013-04-04T08:56:12Z")
Seen that being documented in the module code. My understanding is the doc is being generated from the code, so it is a matter of refresh ---
**Author:** ![Serge\_van\_Ginderacht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@Serge\_van\_Ginderacht](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Serge_van_Ginderacht)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 9:15am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/5 "2013-04-04T09:15:03Z")
​Ah, I'm too quick, I already have trouble keeping up with the new features​ that are getting published in the docs 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![PhilEv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@PhilEv](https://forum.ansible.com/u/PhilEv)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 9:44am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/6 "2013-04-04T09:44:24Z")
fully understand ! same for me not even mentionning that with backrefs I would like to see lineinfile doing the changes for all the matching lines in the target file and not just the latest 🙂 That would be terrific when used in remediation context. Phil ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan2](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan2)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 12:43pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/7 "2013-04-04T12:43:11Z")
"not even mentionning that with backrefs I would like to see lineinfile doing the changes for all the matching lines in the target file and not just the latest :-)" At this point, it seems like you should just run sed against the file. ---
**Author:** ![PhilEv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@PhilEv](https://forum.ansible.com/u/PhilEv)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 12:58pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/8 "2013-04-04T12:58:51Z")
Yeap, considering this at the moment. as patching lineinfile to replace all matching lines make sense only when using backrefs=True, and would require significant change to the lineinfile module. Or just come with a new linesinfile module just for this (note the additional ‘s’ in middle of the name) thanks Phil. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 1:01pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/9 "2013-04-04T13:01:09Z")
The change of code isn’t the concern, but rather the purpose of the module is to make sure a given _line_ is in a file or not. Thus I think it would be confusing if it did global replacements, as that is not the purpose of the module. ---
**Author:** ![PhilEv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@PhilEv](https://forum.ansible.com/u/PhilEv)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 1:43pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/10 "2013-04-04T13:43:50Z")
understood and agree ---
**Author:** ![Marco\_Vito\_Moscarito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/97f17d/32.png) [@Marco\_Vito\_Moscarito](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Marco_Vito_Moscarito)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 4:00pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/11 "2013-04-04T16:00:43Z")
You can find update docs from code at [http://docs.ansible.agavee.com/](http://docs.ansible.agavee.com/) Docs rebuild run each day PDF + HTML + ebook will be relase ASAP. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan2](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan2)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2013, 9:04pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/12 "2013-04-05T21:04:41Z")
Ok, so absolute requirements for this is it must run from ‘make webdocs’. It’s not acceptable for them to be hosted on an external site because then they can’t be accessed offline, nor is it easy to contribute to changes to the way the docs are presented. ---
**Author:** ![Serge\_van\_Ginderacht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@Serge\_van\_Ginderacht](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Serge_van_Ginderacht)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2013, 11:43pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/13 "2013-04-05T23:43:30Z")
​Philippe,​ > "not even mentionning that with backrefs I would like to see > lineinfile doing the changes for all the matching lines in the target > file and not just the latest :-)" > > At this point, it seems like you should just run sed against the file. ​As an excercise I started writing a simple plugin in Bash, here as a wrapper to "sed -e 's/regexp/replace/': [https://github.com/sergevanginderachter/ansible-modules/blob/f01856c43cfb76bf4cf8e0ac61d02c5091b2ffc4/seds](https://github.com/sergevanginderachter/ansible-modules/blob/f01856c43cfb76bf4cf8e0ac61d02c5091b2ffc4/seds) I tried to write the bash functions as modular as possible. I hope this might also evolve to a better boilerplate for bash modules 🙂   Serge . ---
**Author:** ![PhilEv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@PhilEv](https://forum.ansible.com/u/PhilEv)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2013, 8:02am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/14 "2013-04-06T08:02:12Z")
Cool ! will have a look an try in the coming days Phil ---
**Author:** ![Marco\_Vito\_Moscarito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/97f17d/32.png) [@Marco\_Vito\_Moscarito](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Marco_Vito_Moscarito)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2013, 8:36am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/15 "2013-04-06T08:36:20Z")
It is build from webdocs (make modulejs generate JS required in angular, code improvement are WIP). Myjenkis build just: git update make modulejs mv docs/js/modules.js $WEBFOLDER ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan2](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan2)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2013, 6:24pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/16 "2013-04-06T18:24:25Z")
Ok, great, I’ll test shortly. I would like this to become the default. I think the next thing to do is probably to make a ‘category’ field in the DOCUMENTATION string such that it can sort or filter by category, and also (if not already to support the EXAMPLES documentation string). ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan2](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan2)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2013, 6:24pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/17 "2013-04-06T18:24:57Z")
BTW, a pull request to make that part of “make webdocs” seems like a good idea 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Marco\_Vito\_Moscarito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/97f17d/32.png) [@Marco\_Vito\_Moscarito](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Marco_Vito_Moscarito)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 9:03am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/18 "2013-04-07T09:03:48Z")
> Ok, great, I'll test shortly. Nice! > I would like this to become the default. Maybe this is not the best solution, web spider do not find data in page, and don't execute HTML. I'm also working on a HTML page generation (separate html fragment for each module) to make possibile ajax crowlong ¹, this is partially working (on my local machine, sorry) but I need to find some days to refactor Ansible interface before make it public. > I think the next thing to do is probably to make a 'category' field in the > DOCUMENTATION string such that it can sort or filter by category, and also > (if not already to support the EXAMPLES documentation string). Add support to EXAMPLES can be easy to add, but I'm not sure if it can add in UI (parser can just consider all text as code, so have a wrong impact on page presentation). Filter by category will add ASAP (when all module have category), in Issue #2194 I suggest to use "tags" inside "category" to have multiple tagging capabilities (eg: user, database, mysql) and make possible have "faceted search" on content... if you are agree i will work on this feature in the next weeks (category/tag + module tagging). Now I'm working on coding standard in documentation fragment (as descrbed in a old mail). Bye        Marco ¹ [https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/docs/specification](https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/docs/specification) ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan2](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan2)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 3:43pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/19 "2013-04-07T15:43:04Z")
Tags instead of category seems great, as for examples could we not just turn a new line into a BR tag? -- Michael ---
**Author:** ![Marco\_Vito\_Moscarito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/97f17d/32.png) [@Marco\_Vito\_Moscarito](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Marco_Vito_Moscarito)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 4:43pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625/20 "2013-04-07T16:43:41Z")
> Tags instead of category seems great, as for examples could we not > just turn a new line into a BR tag? What? Have all examples without \/\ tag? Having code without monospace font I think make docs inusable, have all text with monospace font mate text less readable. Having not separation in examples make (in my opinion) documentation a mess of text. > -- Michael Bye        Marco [Next page](https://forum.ansible.com/t/lineinfile-in-v1-1/12625.md?page=2)