Ansible Module xml

External

• https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/community/general/xml_module.html

Internal

• Ansible Concepts

Overview

The plugin is named community.general.xml and it offers functionality aimed at interacting with XML files, using XPath.

Example

<box>
    <object name="A" color="red">square</child>
    <object name="B" color="green">circle</child>
    <object name="C" color="blue">triangle</child>
</box>

- name: XML manipulation
  xml:
    path: /tmp/test.xml # the file must exist
    xpath: /box/object[@name='B']

Module Parameters

path (dest, file)

The path to the file to operate on. The file must exists, otherwise the module will fail, with a message similar to: The target XML source '...' does not exist.. The parameter is required unless xmlstring is provided.

- name: test
  xml:
    path: /tmp/test.xml # the file must exist
    ...

xpath

A valid XPath expression describing the file item(s) to manipulate. Operates on the document root, /, by default.

- name: test
  xml:
    ...
    xpath: /box/object[@name='B']
    ...

content

Specifies the kind of content we want to get from the matching XPath expression:

• attribute or
• text.

xpath must be set.

attribute

The matches result key contains a JSON document listing the matching elements and the value of all their attributes. The count result key contains the number of matching elements.

- name: test
  xml:
    path: test.xml
    xpath: /box/object[@name='B']
    content: attribute
  register: xpath_result

produces the following xpath_result.matches:

[
  {
    "object": {
      "color": "green",
       "name": "B"
    }
  }
]

text

The matches result key contains a JSON document listing the matching elements name and its element text. The count result key contains the number of matching elements.

- name: test
  xml:
    path: test.xml
    xpath: /box/object[@name='B']
    content: text
  register: xpath_result

produces the following xpath_result.matches:

[
  {
    "object": "circle"
  }
]

value

Configuration element useful when updating or deleting XML content. value represents the desired state of the selected attribute. It could be either a string, or to unset a value, the Python None keyword (YAML Equivalent, null).

Elements default to no value (but present). Attributes default to an empty string.

attribute

The attribute to select when using parameter #value. This is a string, not prepended with @.

xmlstring

A string containing in-line XML content on which to operate. This parameter is required, unless path is given.

Use Cases

Deletion

- name: Bump Java build heap size to {{build.jvm.heap_max}} MB
  xml:
    path: "{{ansible_env.PROJECT_ROOT}}/.idea/compiler.xml"
    xpath: /project/component[@name='CompilerConfiguration']/option[@name='BUILD_PROCESS_HEAP_SIZE']
    attribute: "value"
    value: "{{build.jvm.heap_max}}"

- name: Set Eclipse as default compiler
  xml:
    path: "{{idea_path}}/.idea/compiler.xml"
    xpath: /project/component[@name='CompilerConfiguration']/option[@name='DEFAULT_COMPILER']
    attribute: "value"
    value: "Eclipse"