How to use Concatenate multiple files in a specific order using Ansible?

This is extremely useful for service configuration files, reports, and so much more use cases. I personally use this code for markdown documents for Pandoc.

I'm going to show you a live Playbook with some simple Ansible code.

I'm Luca Berton and welcome to today's episode of Ansible Pilot.

Ansible Concatenate multiple files in a specific order

  • ansible.builtin.template
  • Template a file out to a target host
  • ansible_managed, template_host, template_uid, template_path, template_fullpath, template_destpath, and template_run_date

Let's talk about the Ansible module template.

The full name is ansible.builtin.template, it's part of ansible-core and is included in all Ansible installations.

It templates a file out to a target host. Templates are processed by the Jinja2 templating language.

Also you could use also some special variables in your templates: ansible_managed, template_host, template_uid, template_path, template_fullpath, template_destpath, and template_run_date.

It supports a large variety of Operating Systems.

For basic text formatting, use the [Ansible ansible.builtin.copy module](/articles/create-a-text-file-ansible-module-copy) or for [empty file Ansible ansible.builtin.file module](/articles/create-an-empty-file-ansible-module-file).

For Windows, use the ansible.windows.win_template module instead.

Parameters

  • src _path_ - template ("templates/" dir)
  • dest _path_ - target location
  • validate _string_ - validation command before ("%s")
  • backup _boolean_ - no/yes
  • mode/owner/group - permission
  • setype/seuser/selevel - SELinux

Let me highlight the most useful parameters for the template module.

The only required parameters are "src" and "dest".

The "src" parameter specifies the template file name. Templates usually are stored under "templates" directories with the ".j2" file extension.

The "dest" parameter specifies the path where to render the template on the remote machine.

The "validate" parameters allow you to specify the validation command to run before copying it into place. It's very useful with configuration files for services.

Please note that the special escape sequence "%s" is going to be expanded by Ansible with the destination path.

If the "backup" parameter is enabled Ansible creates a backup file including the timestamp information before copying it to the destination.

Let me also highlight that we could also specify the permissions and SELinux properties.

## Playbook

How to concatenate multiple files in a specific order with the Ansible module template and YAML.

code

  • a.txt

``txt

A content

`

  • b.txt

`txt

B content

`

  • includes.yaml

`yaml

input-files:

- concatenate/b.txt

- concatenate/a.txt

`

  • concatenate.yml

``yaml

---

  • name: concatenate Playbook

hosts: "{{ HOSTS }}"

become: false

gather_facts: true

vars:

myinput: "c