Ansible now honoring blockinfile indent value

Question

I am trying to use ansible blockinfile with its indent feature. Here is my playbook:

- name: Add line to netplan file
  become: true
  ansible.builtin.blockinfile:
    path: /etc/netplan/00-installer-config.yaml.REMOVE
    marker: ""
    block: |4
          test

Here is the 00-installer-config.yaml.REMOVE file before the change:

test

Here is it after

test
  test

Notice how it only does 2 spaces, even though I state clearly to use 4. I have tried 8 spaces, and 10, any integer. Always indents 2 spaces. why?

Answer 1

The simple playbook below writes the block into the file

- hosts: localhost
  vars:
    test: |
      test
  tasks:
    - copy:
        dest: /tmp/test.txt
        content: "{{ test }}"

The text is not indented in the file

shell> cat /tmp/test.txt 
test

If we indent the text in the block further

  vars:
    test: |
        test

the text is still not indented in the file because YAML interprets all four spaces as YAML indentation

shell> cat /tmp/test.txt 
test

If we tell YAML that we will use only two spaces as YAML indentation

  vars:
    test: |2
        test

The text will be indented by 2 spaces because YAML takes 2 spaces as YAML indentation and the next 2 spaces as part of the text in the block

shell> cat /tmp/test.txt 
  test

This explains the behavior of the text indentation in a block.

---

Notes:

• Optionally, you can use Jinja filter indent . For example,

 - hosts: localhost vars: test: | line1 line2 line3 tasks: - copy: dest: /tmp/test.txt content: | {{ test|indent(4, first=true) }}

gives

shell> cat /tmp/test.txt line1 line2 line3

• See Whitespace Control

• See Block Style Productions