Ansible: How to run command with shell output - shell

Question

Self explanatory. I want to link based on $(which {{ item }}).
Already saw the register function, but as I need to do a nested loop I'm not sure how to use it.
name: Link bins to user path
command: 'ln -s \$(which {{ item.1 }}) /home/{{ item.0 }}/bin/{{ item.1 }}'
with_nested:
- "{{ jail_users }}"
- "{{ jail_user_commands }}
Output:
failed: [rousertest] (item=[u'bob', u'date']) => {"changed": true,
"cmd": ["ln", "-s", "$(which", "date)", "/home/bob/bin/date"], "delta":
"0:00:00.011825", "end": "2019-07-11 08:17:32.921705", "item": ["bob", "date"], "msg": "non-zero return code", "rc": 1, "start": "2019-07-11
08:17:32.909880", "stderr": "ln: target ‘/home/bob/bin/date’ is not a
directory", "stderr_lines": ["ln: target ‘/home/bob/bin/date’ is not a
directory"], "stdout": "", "stdout_lines": []
Of course I was expecting something like this:
sudo ansible server -i inventory -m shell -a 'echo $(which date)'
rousertest | SUCCESS | rc=0 >>
/usr/bin/date

Answer 1

Below is the play. Avoid using command module for link. Use file module with state=link.
- name: Link binary
hosts: all
gather_facts: true
vars:
files:
- date
- ls
users:
- user1
- user2
tasks:
- name: Find paths
command: which {{ item }}
with_items:
- "{{ files }}"
register: result
- name: Link bins to user path
file:
src: "{{ item.1.stdout }}"
dest: "/home/{{ item.0 }}/bin/{{ item.1.item }}"
owner: "{{ item.0 }}"
group: "{{ item.0 }}"
state: link
with_nested:
- "{{ users }}"
- "{{ result.results }}"