Need help with regex_replace

[hieronymus]

Hi guys,

I’ve a problem with regex_replace module. It seems that my expression is correct but I’m not getting the expected result.

So I’m using a raw command and use register to get the result.
Here’s my debug:

- name: Get virtual info
  ansible.builtin.debug:
    msg:  " vminfo : {{ vminfo.stdout_lines }}"

Here’s the result:

ok: [vm01-vm-dev01.local.com] =>
  msg: ' vminfo : [''1 vm01-vm-dev01'']'

I need to retrieve the second part of this string : vm01-vm-dev01 and here is my code:

- name Get virtual info
  ansible.builtin.debug:
    msg:  " vminfo : {{ vminfo.stdout_lines | regex_replace('^([0-9])\\s(vm.*)$', '\\2') }}"

With regex_replace I tried to isolate the elements separated by a space and retrieve the second one but unfortunately nothing happens!

As anyone an idea what’s wrong by my regex? Any ideas?

Regards,

[chris (Chris Croome)]

If you only want the first item in the list you could use vminfo.stdout_lines[0] and then split to get the second part of the string, for example something like this might work (untested):

- name: Set a fact for the VM name
  ansible.builtin.set_fact:
    vmname: "{{ (vminfo.stdout_lines[0] | ansible.builtin.split)[1] }}"

[Dustin]

Notice the “[” and " ]" surrounding the string you want. That means that the variable vminfo.stdout_lines is a list, and it contains a single string. That means that you are passing a list to regex_replace instead of a string.

ok: [vm01-vm-dev01.local.com] =>
  msg: ' vminfo : [''1 vm01-vm-dev01'']'

As @chris shows in his example, you need to identify which item in stdout_lines that you want to pass to regex_replace.

Edit: Corrected vminfo reference to vminfo.stdout_lines

[hieronymus]

Thanks a lot for your answer.
It’s now clear and I have now been able to solve my problem.

[Dustin]

Please, don’t forget to mark @chris message as the solution so others can more easily find the answer to similar issue.