ansible.windows.win_lineinfile module – Ensure a particular line is in a file, or replace an existing line using a back-referenced regular expression

Note

This module is part of the ansible.windows collection (version 3.9.1).

It is not included in ansible-core. To check whether it is installed, run ansible-galaxy collection list.

To install it, use: ansible-galaxy collection install ansible.windows.

To use it in a playbook, specify: ansible.windows.win_lineinfile.

New in ansible.windows 3.9.0

Synopsis

• This module will search a file for a line, and ensure that it is present or absent.

• This is primarily useful when you want to change a single line in a file only.

• For non-Windows targets, use the ansible.builtin.lineinfile module instead.

Parameters

Parameter	Comments
backrefs boolean	Used with state=present. If set, line can contain backreferences (both positional and named) that will get populated if the regex matches. This flag changes the operation of the module slightly; insertbefore and insertafter will be ignored, and if the regex does not match anywhere in the file, the file will be left unchanged. If the regex does match, the last matching line will be replaced by the expanded line parameter. Choices: false ← (default) true
backup boolean	Determine whether a backup should be created. When set to true, create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly. Choices: false ← (default) true
create boolean	Used with state=present. If specified, the file will be created if it does not already exist. By default it will fail if the file is missing. Choices: false ← (default) true
encoding string	Specifies the encoding of the source text file to operate on (and thus what the output encoding will be). The default of auto will cause the module to auto-detect the encoding of the source file and ensure that the modified file is written with the same encoding. An explicit encoding can be passed as a string that is a valid value to pass to the .NET framework System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding() method, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.text.encoding.getencoding. This is mostly useful with create=true if you want to create a new file with a specific encoding. If create=true is specified without a specific encoding, the default encoding (UTF-8, no BOM) will be used. Default: "auto"
insertafter string	Used with state=present. If specified, the line will be inserted after the last match of the specified regular expression. A special value EOF is available for inserting the line at the end of the file. If the specified regular expression has no matches, EOF will be used instead. May not be used with backrefs. Defaults to EOF when neither insertafter nor insertbefore is specified.
insertbefore string	Used with state=present. If specified, the line will be inserted before the last match of the specified regular expression. A special value BOF is available for inserting the line at the beginning of the file. If the specified regular expression has no matches, the line will be inserted at the end of the file. May not be used with backrefs.
line string	Required for state=present. The line to insert/replace into the file. If backrefs is set, may contain backreferences that will get expanded with the regex capture groups if the regex matches. Be aware that the line is processed first on the controller and thus is dependent on yaml quoting rules. Any double quoted line will have control characters, such as \\r\\n, expanded. To print such characters literally, use single or no quotes.
newline string	Specifies the line separator style to use for the modified file. This defaults to the windows line separator \\r\\n. Note that the indicated line separator will be used for file output regardless of the original line separator that appears in the input file. Choices: "unix" "windows" ← (default)
path aliases: dest, destfile, name path / required	The path of the file to modify. Note that the Windows path delimiter \\ must be escaped as \\\\ when the line is double quoted.
regex aliases: regexp string	The regular expression to look for in every line of the file. For state=present, the pattern to replace if found; only the last line found will be replaced. For state=absent, the pattern of the line to remove. Uses .NET compatible regular expressions, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/regular-expression-language-quick-reference.
state string	Whether the line should be there or not. Choices: "absent" "present" ← (default)
validate string	Validation to run before copying into place. Use %s in the command to indicate the current file to validate. The command is passed securely so shell features like expansion and pipes will not work.

See Also

See also

ansible.builtin.assemble

The official documentation on the ansible.builtin.assemble module.

ansible.builtin.lineinfile

The official documentation on the ansible.builtin.lineinfile module.

ansible.windows.win_copy

Copies files to remote locations on windows hosts.

ansible.windows.win_template

Template a file out to a remote server.

Examples

- name: Insert path without converting \r\n
  ansible.windows.win_lineinfile:
    path: c:\file.txt
    line: c:\return\new

- name: Replace a line matching a regex
  ansible.windows.win_lineinfile:
    path: C:\Temp\example.conf
    regex: '^name='
    line: 'name=JohnDoe'

- name: Remove a line matching a regex
  ansible.windows.win_lineinfile:
    path: C:\Temp\example.conf
    regex: '^name='
    state: absent

- name: Ensure the localhost entry is correct
  ansible.windows.win_lineinfile:
    path: C:\Temp\example.conf
    regex: '^127\.0\.0\.1'
    line: '127.0.0.1 localhost'

- name: Uncomment and set a Listen directive
  ansible.windows.win_lineinfile:
    path: C:\Temp\httpd.conf
    regex: '^Listen '
    insertafter: '^#Listen '
    line: Listen 8080

- name: Insert a comment before a services entry
  ansible.windows.win_lineinfile:
    path: C:\Temp\services
    regex: '^# port for http'
    insertbefore: '^www.*80/tcp'
    line: '# port for http by default'

- name: Create file if it doesn't exist with a specific encoding
  ansible.windows.win_lineinfile:
    path: C:\Temp\utf16.txt
    create: true
    encoding: utf-16
    line: This is a utf-16 encoded file

- name: Add a line to a file and ensure the resulting file uses unix line separators
  ansible.windows.win_lineinfile:
    path: C:\Temp\testfile.txt
    line: Line added to file
    newline: unix

- name: Update a line using backrefs
  ansible.windows.win_lineinfile:
    path: C:\Temp\example.conf
    backrefs: true
    regex: '(^name=)'
    line: '$1JohnDoe'

Return Values

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:

Key	Description
backup_file string	Name of the backup file that was created. Returned: if backup=true and a change was made Sample: "C:\\Path\\To\\File.txt.11540.20150212-220915.bak"
encoding string	The encoding that was used to read from and write to the file. Returned: success Sample: "utf-8"
found integer	The number of lines that matched and were removed. Returned: state=absent Sample: 1
msg string	A short description of the change that was made. Returned: success Sample: "line added"

Authors

• Brian Lloyd (@brianlloyd)

Collection links

• Issue Tracker
• Repository (Sources)