Total Ansible n00b needing guidance on translating bash command to Ansible playlist

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1

Hi,

I’m trying to run the following nested bash command: rm $( locate somefile ) but Ansible is kicking back an error asking me to use “state=absent” instead. How do I execute this while I’m searching for the potential location of “somefile” at the same time? And is this the correct location for asking these kinds of questions?

Thanks!

2

A method would be to get the return value from http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/find_module.html and then set the file state to absent.

3

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the reply. I’m unfamiliar with how to reference the return value syntax. Would it be something like this?

4

Whoops, posted too soon.

5

So, something like this?

6

Something like this… assuming email does not mess it up to much… there are likely better ways but that is the 2 minute try

‘’’

  • name: find files
    find:
    paths: “/tmp”
    patterns: “lala”
    recurse: “yes”
    file_type: “file”
    register: find_result

  • name: remove found files
    file:
    path: “{{ item.path }}”
    state: absent
    with_items: “{{ find_result.files }}”
    ‘’’

7

Thanks Andrew. I’ll give that a try. Out of curiosity, does Ansible allow for output stored as variables to be referenced later in a Playbook?

8

Later in a playbook, yes, between playbooks, no.