On Wednesday, January 25, 2017 at 10:43:10 PM UTC-8, Kai Stian Olstad wrote:
>
> On 25.01.2017 23:37, [email protected] <javascript:> wrote:
> > I have a problem where a line that contains a certain space delimited
> > string must exist in a file. The string can be anywhere in the line:
> > start, middle, or end. If a line that contains that string does not
> > exist,
> > then a line with that string needs to be inserted into the file. I
> > have
> > been trying to use the lineinfile module to solve this, but so far I
> > have
> > been unsuccessful. Below is the code I have tried:
> >
> > - lineinfile:
> > dest: "/path/to/myfile"
> > regexp: '^(.*)(\s*this_string_must_exist)(\s+.*)$'
> > line: '\g<1> this_string_must_exist\g<3>'
> > backrefs: true
> > state: present
> >
> > I have tried many variations of the regular expression and line, but
> > nothing I have tried totally achieves what I am looking for. I have
> > verified that the regular expression can locate a line with the string
> > regardless of where the string is within the line, and if such a line
> > is
> > located it is not modified. But I have not been successful in getting
> > a
> > new line inserted if it does not already exist.
> > Does anyone have any suggestions?
>
> The reason it doesn't work is explained in the documentation.
>
> https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/lineinfile_module.html#options
>
> In the comments about the backrefs:
> "... and if the regexp doesn't match anywhere in the file, the file will
> be left unchanged."
>
> So you'll need to find a way to do it without backrefs: yes if you are
> going to use lineinfile.
>
> --
> Kai Stian Olstad
>
Yes, I finally spotted that immediately after I posted my initial query
(when all else fails, read the documentation). Now I am trying to use
lineinfile (or maybe grep) to look for the string and register the results,
then use a second lineinfile to add a line if the results of the first
lineinfile indicates that it is missing. This is a bit complicated because
I have several strings that I need to look for and I want to use
'with_items' to store them.
-Mark
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