Ansible: multi line over playbook - yaml

Question

I have a question about multi line and Ansible playbook:
I have created a playbook with a line very large, I need to cut this line for better reading. How I can doing it?
- name: 'Create VM Azure :-P '
shell: if ! grep {{ item }} /tmp/vm_{{ rgName }}; then azure vm create --vm-size {{ groups['item'][vmsize] }} --resource-group {{ rgName }} --name {{ item }} --location {{ location }} --admin-username {{ username }} --ssh-publickey-file {{ sshfile }} --storage-account-name {{ rgName | lower }} --os-type {{ groups['item'][type_os] }} --image-urn {{ image }} --data-disk-size {{ disksize }} --subnet-id {{ subnetid_key }} --nic-names {{ item }}; fi
with_items: groups['test']
I would like to make it as follows way, but I have some errors when execute the playbook
- name: 'Create VM Azure :-P '
shell: if ! grep {{ item }} /tmp/vm_{{ rgName }}; then
azure vm create --vm-size {{ groups['item'][vmsize] }}
--resource-group {{ rgName }} --name {{ item }}
--location {{ location }} --admin-username {{ username }}
--ssh-publickey-file {{ sshfile }} --storage-account-name {{ rgName | lower }}
--os-type {{ groups['item'][type_os] }} --image-urn {{ image }}
--data-disk-size {{ disksize }} --subnet-id {{ subnetid_key }}
--nic-names {{ item }}; fi
with_items: groups['test']
The error:
ERROR! Syntax Error while loading YAML.
The error appears to have been in '/home/pvillarruel/docker/azure-ansible/data/playbook.yml': line 79, column 1, but may
be elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.
The offending line appears to be:
shell: if ! grep {{ item }} /tmp/vm_{{ rgName }}; then azure vm create --vm-size
{{ groups['item'][vmsize] }} --resource-group {{ rgName }} --name {{ item }}
^ here
We could be wrong, but this one looks like it might be an issue with
missing quotes. Always quote template expression brackets when they
start a value. For instance:
with_items:
- {{ foo }}
Should be written as:
with_items:
- "{{ foo }}"
Thanks

Answer 1

Use a YAML block scalar, they were designed exactly for this kind of thing:
shell: >
if ! grep {{ item }} /tmp/vm_{{ rgName }}; then
azure vm create --vm-size {{ groups['item'][vmsize] }}
--resource-group {{ rgName }} --name {{ item }}
--location {{ location }} --admin-username {{ username }}
--ssh-publickey-file {{ sshfile }}
--storage-account-name {{ rgName | lower }}
--os-type {{ groups['item'][type_os] }} --image-urn {{ image }}
--data-disk-size {{ disksize }} --subnet-id {{ subnetid_key }}
--nic-names {{ item }}; fi
The > indicates that the following block is a scalar and lines should be folded, i.e. a newline character will be converted into a single space. You also do not need to worry about special characters, everything will be taken literally in a folded block scalar.