How to read CSV file data in ansible-playbook using with_lines? - loops

Question

I have situation where in one csv file i have 2 columns like below
cat report.csv
Field1,Field2,Field3
name3,3,5
name4,5,6
now i want to use the lines which are in bold.
Each column will be an input to one of the ansible role.
it should go like
roles:
- { role: arti_master, mod_name: "{{ item.name}}" , version: "{{ item.version}}"
with_lines:
- "cat report.csv|cut -d, -f2"

Answer 1

Here is an example:
- name: "Sending email"
hosts: localhost
gather_facts: no
tasks:
- name: "Reading user information"
read_csv:
path: users.csv
register: users
- name: "Sending an e-mail using Gmail SMTP servers"
mail:
host: smtp.gmail.com
port: 587
username: <email>
password: <pass>
to: "{{ user.email }}"
subject: Email Subjet
body: |
Hi {{ user.first_name }},
How are you?
loop: "{{ users.list }}"
loop_control:
loop_var: user
And the CSV:
first_name,last_name,email
Joel,Zamboni,joel.zamboni#example.com
The read_csv returns the data in two formats, as a dict or as a list and in this case I am 'looping' over the list to send emails.
Best,
Joel

Answer 2

I believe you have two (and a half) ways that I can think of:
Do as you said and run the file through cut or python -c "import csv;..." or other "manual" processing, then capture the output in a variable
Anything that looks like JSON when fed into a vars: or set_fact: will become a list or dict, so you'd just want the text to go into a tool looking like CSV and come out of the tool looking like JSON
Use the lookup("csvfile") to actually read the file using an "approved" mechanism
(this is the "half" part:) if the csv is on the remote machine, then use fetch: to pull it to your controlling machine, then run lookup("csvfile") on it

Answer 3

read_csv module was recently added to ansible, and is now available from ansible 2.8. After upgrading ansible, you can read line by line as follows:
- name: read the csv file
read_csv:
path: "{{ report.csv }}"
delimiter: ','
register: report_csv
You can then access it as list by using report_csv.list and it'll hold values as a list of dictionaries:
[{'Field1': 'name3', 'Field2': 3, 'Field3': 5}, {'Field1': 'name4', 'Field2': 5, 'Field3': 6}]

Answer 4

Sharing my ansible code as well this is what worked for me https://stackoverflow.com/a/56910479/1679541
playbook.yaml
---
- name: Read Users
gather_facts: True
hosts: localhost
tasks:
- read_csv:
path: users.csv
register: userlist
- debug:
msg: "{{ user.username }} and password is {{ user.password }}"
loop: "{{ userlist.list }}"
loop_control:
loop_var: user
users.csv
username,password
user0,test123
user1,test123
Ansible Output
PLAY [Read Users] *************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] *********************************************************
ok: [127.0.0.1]
TASK [read_csv] ****************************************************************
ok: [127.0.0.1]
TASK [debug] *******************************************************************
ok: [127.0.0.1] => (item={u'username': u'user0', u'password': u'test123'}) => {
"msg": "user0 and password is test123"
}
ok: [127.0.0.1] => (item={u'username': u'user1', u'password': u'test123'}) => {
"msg": "user1 and password is test123"
}
PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
127.0.0.1 : ok=3 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0