Find files in a loop and delete them - ansible

Question

I would like to delete file in some sub directory which contains certain format. However, I am getting the error
'dict object' has no attribute 'files'.
Below is my code. The file pattern would be file_name.file_extension.processID.YYYY-MM-DD#HH:MM:SS~
My variables
fileToFindInAllSubDirecotry
- "home/usr/file1"
- "home/usr/file2"
- "home/usr/file3/file4"
- "home/usr/file5"
My playbook role
- name: Find file
find:
paths: "{{ item }}"
use_regex: yes
patterns:
- '.*\.\d+\.\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}#\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}~$'
age: 1d
recurse: yes
register: fileToDelete
loop: "{{ fileToFindInAllSubDirecotry }}"
- name: Delete file
file:
path: "{{ item.path }}"
state: absent
loop: "{{ fileToDelete.files }}"
This is the sample file and directory
home
|-------usr
|-------file1
|-------configFile.xml
|-------file2
|-------propertiesFile.txt.2012.2020-07-13#23:08:10~
|-------file3
|-------file4
|-------content.yml.2012.2020-04-04#23:08:10~
|-------file5
|-------configFile.xml.2012.2020-03-05#13:08:10~

Answer 1

This is happening because you are populating the find with a loop, so you end up with a result that would be a dictionary having a list or results.
Something like:
ok: [localhost] => {
"msg": {
"changed": false,
"msg": "All items completed",
"results": [
{
...
"files": [ ... ],
...
"item": "/home/usr/file1",
...
},
{
...
"files": [ ... ],
...
"item": "/home/usr/file2",
...
},
...
]
}
}
There is two ways to fix this:
The nicest one, because, as pointed by the documentation, the paths parameter of the module find can accept lists of paths, just pass it your whole fileToFindInAllSubDirecotry variables instead of using a loop, this way your deletion works as is:
- name: Find file
find:
paths: "{{ fileToFindInAllSubDirecotry }}"
use_regex: yes
patterns:
- '.*\.\d+\.\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}#\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}~$'
age: 1d
recurse: yes
register: fileToDelete
- name: Delete file
file:
path: "{{ item.path }}"
state: absent
loop: "{{ fileToDelete.files }}"
Use json_query to fetch the result[*].files then flatten the resulting list of list
- name: Find file
find:
paths: "{{ item }}"
use_regex: yes
patterns:
- '.*\.\d+\.\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}#\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}~$'
age: 1d
recurse: yes
register: fileToDelete
loop: "{{ fileToFindInAllSubDirecotry }}"
- name: Delete file
file:
path: "{{ item.path }}"
state: absent
loop: "{{ fileToDelete | json_query('results[*].files') | flatten }}"