Ansible: get files list from local directory

Question

I use ansible 1.9.4 and I would like to get the list of files from a local directory.

In 2.0 version, there is the find module but this version is beta.

How to do this in < 2.0 ?

Answer 1

Some time ago I was building an automation that required something like that - see Ansible send file to the first met destination.

Prior to ansible 2.0 there's no way to do this without using command or shell.

If you really can't upgrade to ansible 2.0, use the command module:

vars:
  directory: /path/to/dir

tasks:

  - command: "ls {{directory}}"
    register: dir_out

  - debug: var={{item}}
    with_items: dir_out.stdout_lines

Answer 2

This is an example of listing all the files with .j2 extension in the directory templates and passing them to a module.

template: src="{{ item }}" dest="generated/{{ inventory_hostname }}/{{ item | basename | replace('.j2', '')}}"
  delegate_to: 127.0.0.1
  with_fileglob: templates/*.j2

Answer 3

Now there is a find module you can use. Example: show folders with name starting with "ansible" and location /tmp, so /tmp/ansible*

- name: ls -d /tmp/ansible*
  find:
    paths: /tmp
    patterns: "ansible*"
    recurse: no
    file_type: directory
  register: found_directories

- debug:
    msg: "{{ [item.path] }} "
  with_items: "{{ found_directories.files }}"