Unable to remove entry from a file using Ansible regex - regex

Question

Note: i m seeking solution for Ansible. Here is the issue description:
I have a file filedet.yml as below, however realtime this yaml may contain many more IP and file details.
---
10.9.9.111:
/tmp/test.jar:
hash: e6df90d38fa86f0e289f73d79cd2cfd2a29954eb
/tmp/best.jar:
hash: e6df90d38fa86f0e289f73d79cd2cfd2a29954eb
10.8.8.44:
/tmp/conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf:
hash: 1746f03d57491b27158b0d3a48fca8b5fa85c0c2
/tmp/conf/httpd.conf:
hash: 1746f03d57491b27158b0d3a48fca8b5fa85c0c2
I wish to extract a particular IP and the file details so that it can be removed from the yaml using state: absent attribute . Thus, the desired regex should return the below:
10.9.9.111:
/tmp/test.jar:
hash: e6df90d38fa86f0e289f73d79cd2cfd2a29954e
/tmp/best.jar:
hash: e6df90d38fa86f0e289f73d79cd2cfd2a29954eb
I decided to have the start pattern as '10.9.9.111' and search until there are no spaces or newlines which means until it gets to the next IP.
I prepared the below regex and it shows correct, desired FULL Text match on http://regex101.com. See snapshot.
Regex query below:
[^#](^10.9.9.111:)(.|\n)*^(?!( |\n))
The same regex works fine with grep -Pzo and returns the desired string. However, the regex fails to work with ansible's lineinfile module as it does not yeild any results.
i want this regex or any other solution to work with Ansible so i can remove the given IP and it's file details from the yaml
Ansible:
- name: "Remove entry from file."
lineinfile:
path: "/app/filedet.yaml"
regexp: "[^#](^10.9.9.111:)(.|\n)*^(?!( |\n))"
state: absent
Can you please suggest what is the issue here ?

Answer 1

Q: "I wish to extract an IP and the file details."
A: Use include_vars. For example
- include_vars:
file: filedet.yml
name: my_dict
- debug:
msg: "{{ my_dict['10.9.9.111'] }}"
give
"msg": {
"/tmp/best.jar": {
"hash": "e6df90d38fa86f0e289f73d79cd2cfd2a29954eb"
},
"/tmp/test.jar": {
"hash": "e6df90d38fa86f0e289f73d79cd2cfd2a29954eb"
}
}
Q: "Remove an entry from the file."
A: Use template. For example
$ cat filedet.yml.j2
{% for item in my_dict_keys %}
{{ item }}:
{{ my_dict[item]|to_nice_yaml|indent(2) }}
{% endfor %}
The task below
- set_fact:
my_dict_keys:
- "10.8.8.44"
- template:
src: filedet.yml.j2
dest: filedet.yml
gives
$ cat filedet.yml
10.8.8.44:
/tmp/conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf:
hash: 1746f03d57491b27158b0d3a48fca8b5fa85c0c2
/tmp/conf/httpd.conf:
hash: 1746f03d57491b27158b0d3a48fca8b5fa85c0c2
Notes:
It's a bad idea to use lineinfile for this purpose
Data in the question is not valid YAML. The key is repeating
10.9.9.111:
/tmp/test.jar:
hash: e6df90d38fa86f0e289f73d79cd2cfd2a29954eb
/tmp/test.jar:
hash: e6df90d38fa86f0e289f73d79cd2cfd2a29954eb