Ansible Module: diff

Some custom ansible modules not yet submitted or accepted by Ansible.

Usage

An Ansible module to do generic diffs against strings, files and command outputs.

Arguments

Name	Required	Default	Description
source	Yes		The source input to diff. Can be a string, contents of a file or output from a command, depending on source_type
target	Yes		The target input to diff. Can be a string, contents of a file or output from a command, depending on target_type
source_type	No	string	Specify the input type of source: string, file or command
target_type	No	string	Specify the input type of target: string, file or command
diff	No	raw	Specify the diff type: raw or yaml.
diff_yaml_ignore	No	[]	List of keys to ignore for yaml diff

Examples

# Diff compare two strings
- diff:
    source: "foo"
    target: "bar"
    source_type: string
    target_type: string

# Diff compare variable against template file (as strings)
- diff:
    source: "{{ lookup('template', tpl.yml.j2) }}"
    target: "{{ my_var }}"
    source_type: string
    target_type: string

# Diff compare string against command output
- diff:
    source: "/bin/bash"
    target: "which bash"
    source_type: string
    target_type: command

# Diff compare file against command output
- diff:
    source: "/etc/hostname"
    target: "hostname"
    source_type: file
    target_type: command

# Diff compare two normalized yaml files (sorted keys and comments stripped),
# but additionally ignore the yaml keys: 'creationTimestamp' and 'metadata'
- diff:
    source: /tmp/file-1.yml
    target: /tmp/file-2.yml
    source_type: file
    target_type: file
    diff: yaml
    diff_yaml_ignore:
      - creationTimestamp
      - metadata

Integration

Assuming you are in the root folder of your ansible project.

Specify a module path in your ansible configuration file.

$ vim ansible.cfg

[defaults]
...
library = ./library
...

Create the directory and copy the python module into that directory

$ mkdir library
$ cp path/to/module library