Why aren't template_path and template_fullpath expanded to different values?

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1

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/builtin/template_module.html
says

  • template_path is the path of the template.

  • template_fullpath is the absolute path of the template.

Can someone explain how “the path” is suppose to be different from “the absolute path”? If I put both those variables in a template, they are expanded to the absolute path to the template on the source filesystem e.g.

{{ template_fullpath }}

{{ template_path }}

in a template results in this:

/home/mike/gitrepos/ansibletesting/roles/foo/templates/blah.txt

/home/mike/gitrepos/ansibletesting/roles/foo/templates/blah.txt

I’ve found a few other mentions of people saying the same thing, e.g. https://www.toptechskills.com/ansible-tutorials-courses/ansible-template-module-tutorial-examples/ says: “template_fullpath - Same as template_path in my experience” and in this old issue https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/29995 which seems to have gone nowhere someone says “There are two vars that play out to the same value.”.

I assume template_path and template_fullpath are supposed to be different values, but different how, and under what circumstances?

2

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/builtin/template_module.html
says
#

template_path is the path of the template.

#

template_fullpath is the absolute path of the template.

Can someone explain how "the path" is suppose to be different from "the absolute path"? If I put both those variables in
a template, they are expanded to the absolute path to the template on the source filesystem e.g.

# {{ template_fullpath }}
# {{ template_path }}

in a template results in this:

# /home/mike/gitrepos/ansibletesting/roles/foo/templates/blah.txt
# /home/mike/gitrepos/ansibletesting/roles/foo/templates/blah.txt

I've found a few other mentions of people saying the same thing, e.g.
https://www.toptechskills.com/ansible-tutorials-courses/ansible-template-module-tutorial-examples/ says:
"template_fullpath - Same as template_path in my experience" and in this old issue
https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/29995 which seems to have gone nowhere someone says "There are two vars that
play out to the same value.".

I assume template_path and template_fullpath are supposed to be different values, but different how, and under what
circumstances?

Hello,

why did you need to know the template paths? What is your usecase for them?

Regards
         Racke

3

A bit of history here, initially path was the 'relative path' passed
to src: for the template action and fullpath was the 'absolute
resolved path' to the template file.

But later on a request for these same variables added to the template
lookup created a change and moved them to a centralize function, but
now that function receives only the resolved path (i consider this a
bug) so they are always the same.

4

This should fix the issue and show the correct value in all cases
https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/73924

6

Thanks, Brian, that was all very helpful. I look forward to the fix hitting release.

I’m looking at those variables because of the documented implications of the {file} part of ansible_managed being absolute, what was said in https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/15559 about ansible_managed maybe being removed, and how much I like comments in files which explain which template was used to create them. Whilst looking at making my own variable to use in place of ansible_managed I’ve come up with

{{ template_fullpath | regex_replace(‘^./roles/(.)’,‘\1’) }}

which comes out as something like “foo/templates/blah.txt”. (Which is somewhat inelegant but the only way I could think of to deal with there being an unpredictable number of directories above the one called “roles”.)