win_lineinfile backrefs not working

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1

Hello great people of ansible persuasion,

I’m trying to do some win_lineinfile with backrefs.

Being a core module, it could be I’m doing it wrong, so here it goes - let me know if you have any clue:

win_lineinfile: dest: c:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config regexp: '^(.*)<urlCompression \/>$' line: '\1<urlCompression doStaticCompression="true" doDynamicCompression="true" />' state: present backrefs: yes backup: yes

It’s runninng against this

<urlCompression />

and after execution I end up with this

\1<urlCompression doStaticCompression="true" doDynamicCompression="true" />

it does the job, but i get the \1 instead of the group of spaces. Am I missing anything?

Brussels · New York · stylelabs.com

2

Not used this module myself but I think perhaps you need to use $1 instead of \1

Have a look at the integration tests for this module here:

https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/test/integration/roles/test_win_lineinfile/tasks/main.yml

There’s a task that looks like this
`

  • name: replace a line with backrefs included in the line
    win_lineinfile: dest={{win_output_dir}}/test.txt state=present line=“New $1 created with the backref” backrefs=yes regexp=“^This is (line 4)$”
    `

hence suggestion to try using $1

HTH

Jon

3

Yap, that works, it’s .net regexp after all /me silly. Thx for pointing it out

Also, regading this module the idempotence is slightly broken - I’ve opened an issue (and provided a dirty fix)