Ansible: Adding values to variable in a loop - loops

Question

I'm working on a playbook that does the following:
Goes into a specified path on each Windows server
Slurps text from a file and adds it to a variable
Performs a check on the variable to see if a string of text exists
Writes the results to a file based on the outcome.
Here is the code I have for this:
---
- name: Slurps text from file on Windows server
hosts: win
gather_facts: false
tasks:
- name: Get text
slurp:
src: D:\testsearch.ini
register: norequest
- name: Check for norequest=false in variable
lineinfile:
dest: ./norequest.csv
line: "{{ inventory_hostname }} There is a false value"
state: present
create: true
insertafter: EOF
when: '"''NoRequest = False'' in norequest.content|b64decode"|lower'
delegate_to: localhost
- name: Check for norequest=true in variable
lineinfile:
dest: ./norequest.csv
line: "{{ inventory_hostname }} There is a true value."
state: present
create: true
insertafter: EOF
when: '"''NoRequest = True'' in norequest.content|b64decode"|lower'
delegate_to: localhost
Based on my results, it looks like the playbook slurps the text from the files on both test servers and adds it all to the variable, then performs the conditional check against one of the servers (since the task itself is being delegated to localhost) and outputs the results to the file as though they all came from SERVER1 (the last part seems to be due to the delegation).
PLAY [Slurps text from file on Windows server] *******************************
TASK [Delete previous norequest file] *******************************
changed: [SERVER1 -> localhost]
TASK [Get text] ***************************************
ok: [SERVER2]
ok: [SERVER1]
TASK [Check for norequest=false in variable] ********************************
changed: [SERVER1 -> localhost]
TASK [Check for norequest=true in variable] *******************************
changed: [SERVER1 -> localhost]
PLAY RECAP *******************************
SERVER1 : ok=4 changed=3 unreachable=0 failed=0
SERVER2 : ok=1 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0
Here are the contents of the file after the playbook is run:
SERVER1 There is a false value
SERVER1 There is a true value.
This is what the outcome should be if the playbook worked as I want it to:
SERVER1 There is a false value
SERVER2 There is a true value.
I feel like part (or all) of my issue might be that I'm looking at this through a PowerShell lens; as in, "FOR EACH server, get the text from the file, perform a conditional check, write the output to the outfile, then move on to the next server." Is something like that possible in an Ansible playbook? I've looked into dictionaries as a way to solve this, but the only good examples I could find used pre-existing dictionaries or dictionaries populated at runtime with basic server info.

Answer 1

Seems to me, that the when: condition was wrong. Matching is now done via a regexp. Tested it with this playbook:
---
- name: Slurps text from file on Windows server
hosts:
- SERVER1
- SERVER2
gather_facts: false
tasks:
- name: Get text
slurp:
src: D:\testsearch.ini
register: norequest
- name: Check for norequest=false in variable
lineinfile:
dest: ./norequest.csv
line: "{{ inventory_hostname }} There is a false value"
state: present
create: true
insertafter: EOF
when: 'norequest["content"] | b64decode | lower | regex_search("norequest *= *false")'
delegate_to: localhost
- name: Check for norequest=true in variable
lineinfile:
dest: ./norequest.csv
line: "{{ inventory_hostname }} There is a true value"
state: present
create: true
insertafter: EOF
when: 'norequest["content"] | b64decode | lower | regex_search("norequest *= *true")'
delegate_to: localhost
The file testsearch.ini has the following contents on the systems:
SERVER1
NoRequest = False
SERVER2
NoRequest = True
Executing the playbook with ansible-playbook -i hosts play.yml gives the following output:
PLAY [SERVER1,SERVER2] *********************************************************
TASK [Get text] ****************************************************************
ok: [SERVER1]
ok: [SERVER2]
TASK [Check for norequest=false in variable] ***********************************
skipping: [SERVER2]
ok: [SERVER1 -> localhost]
TASK [Check for norequest=true in variable] ************************************
skipping: [SERVER1]
ok: [SERVER2 -> localhost]
PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
SERVER1 : ok=2 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0
SERVER2 : ok=2 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0
The contents of norequest.csv after the run is
SERVER1 There is a false value
SERVER2 There is a true value