Set registered variable in loop an use it in another role - ansible

Question

Hello guys I have a Problem.
The Problem I am having at the moment, is that the role to copy the files will skip all the files no matter if the file with the filenames is empty or not.
In Role1 I want to save the output of cat for each file. In Role2 in the when conditional, I want the task to skip if the registered output is == "".
Role1:
---
- name: copy files
shell: "cat path{{ item }}files"
register: checkempty
loop:
- test1
- test2
- test3
- test4
Role2:
---
- name: Copy Files
copy:
src: "{{ var1 }}{{ var2 }}{{ var3 }}{{ var4 }}{{ item }}/"
dest: "{{ copy_dest_sys }}" #destination path
loop: "{{ lookup('file', 'pathtofile/file').split('\n')}}"
when: hostvars['localhost'].checkempty.results == ""
Playbook:
- name: check emptiness
hosts: localhost
become: yes
vars_files:
- ../variables/varsfile
roles:
- ../variables/role1
- name: Copy Files to prod/stag
hosts: "{{hosts_exec}}"
become: yes
vars_files:
- ../vars/recommendation-delta.yml
roles:
- ../roles/role2
How can I set a registered variable with with_items and compare the output of it to ""(nothing)?
Can somebody help me with this issue?

Answer 1

Problem of copying whole dir is occurring as {{item}} is Empty in case of your file holding Filename is empty. It is considering src as
src: "{{ git_dest }}{{ git_recoprop_files }}"
in spite of
src: "{{ git_dest }}{{ git_recoprop_files }}{{ item }}/"
because {{item}} is Empty. I am not sure if it is compulsory for you to use first role to check if file is empty or not. if is not compulsory then you can update your 2nd role to
when: item != ""
In addition to that -
checkempty.results == ""
is also wrong. no matter if file is empty or not, this will be having an array of dictionaries for result of each loop item. And dictionaries are having kay value pair of a lot of things like item, stdout etc.
Sample :-
{
"_ansible_ignore_errors": null,
"_ansible_item_label": "inventory1",
"_ansible_item_result": true,
"_ansible_no_log": false,
"_ansible_parsed": true,
"changed": true,
"cmd": "cat /home/rohit/ansible/inventory1",
"delta": "0:00:00.004505",
"end": "2019-04-21 21:13:55.042776",
"failed": false,
"invocation": {
"module_args": {
"_raw_params": "cat /home/rohit/ansible/inventory1",
"_uses_shell": true,
"argv": null,
"chdir": null,
"creates": null,
"executable": null,
"removes": null,
"stdin": null,
"warn": true
}
},
"item": "inventory1",
"rc": 0,
"start": "2019-04-21 21:13:55.038271",
"stderr": "",
"stderr_lines": [],
"stdout": "inventory\nplaybook.yml",
"stdout_lines": [
"inventory",
"playbook.yml"
]
}
]

Answer 2

I think the main problem is you need to use stdout instead of results on your checkempty variable like this:
when: hostvars['localhost'].checkempty.stdout != ""
It seems like you have your logic backwards too, I think you want to use != instead of ==
I'd suggest that you refactor a bit and simplify your code by using stdout_lines in your loop like this:
- name: Copy sys Files to prod/stag
copy:
src: "{{ git_dest }}{{ git_sys_files }}{{ item }}/"
dest: "{{ copy_dest_sys }}" #destination path
loop: "{{ hostvars['localhost'].checkempty.stdout_lines }}"
when: hostvars['localhost'].checkempty.stdout != ""
stdout_lines will give you an array of the lines in the file that you cat'ed and you don't have to use your lookup and split code.