Ansible Builtin Shell: how can I get a table output instead of "\t" delimiters?

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While checking a port range on my nodes with following playbook extract,

  - name: bash commands
    ansible.builtin.shell: |
      grep -E '\b(500[0-9]|50[1-9][0-9]|5[1-4][0-9]{2}|5500)' \
      /etc/services | sort -k 2
    args:
      chdir: /root
      executable: /bin/bash
    async: 2000
    poll: 3
    register: output
  - debug: msg="{{ output.stdout_lines }}"
  - debug: msg="{{ output.stderr_lines }}"

I am getting below sample output, where everything is concatenated with \t delimiters:

ok: [sea_r] => {
    "msg": [
        "enbd-cstatd\t5051/tcp\t\t\t# ENBD client statd",
        "enbd-sstatd\t5052/tcp\t\t\t# ENBD server statd",
        "sip\t\t5060/tcp\t\t\t# Session Initiation Protocol",
        "sip\t\t5060/udp",
        "sip-tls\t\t5061/tcp",
        "sip-tls\t\t5061/udp",
        "pcrd\t\t5151/tcp\t\t\t# PCR-1000 Daemon",
        "xmpp-client\t5222/tcp\tjabber-client\t# Jabber Client Connection",
        "xmpp-server\t5269/tcp\tjabber-server\t# Jabber Server Connection",
        "cfengine\t5308/tcp",
        "mdns\t\t5353/udp\t\t\t# Multicast DNS",
        "noclog\t\t5354/tcp\t\t\t# noclogd with TCP (nocol)",
        "noclog\t\t5354/udp\t\t\t# noclogd with UDP (nocol)",
        "hostmon\t\t5355/tcp\t\t\t# hostmon uses TCP (nocol)",
        "hostmon\t\t5355/udp\t\t\t# hostmon uses UDP (nocol)",
        "postgresql\t5432/tcp\tpostgres\t# PostgreSQL Database"
    ]
}

But running the same thing with below bash script,

for r in "${IPS[@]}"; do
  ssh -tt root@"$r" "
   grep -E --color=always '\b(500[0-9]|50[1-9][0-9]|5[1-4][0-9]{2}|5500)' \
   /etc/services | sort -k 2
   echo -e "continue to next node"; read
"
done

it outputs the following nice table:

bash cmd output

Is it possible to get such a table output with the playbook instead of those \t delimiters?

ansible delimiter shell bash
1 Answers

To allow Ansible to display values like new lines (\n) and tabs (\t), you can use the debug callback.

This can be done, either modifying the ansible.cfg, if you want to apply it on your whole Ansible installation, e.g.

[defaults]
stdout_callback = debug

Or, invoking ansible-playbook this way:

ANSIBLE_STDOUT_CALLBACK=debug ansible-playbook play.yaml

For example; given the task:

- debug:
    msg: "some\tfields\tin\ttable\nfoo\tbar\tbaz\tqux"

When run with the debug callback, this yields:

TASK [debug] ***************************************************************
ok: [node1] => {}

MSG:

some    fields  in      table
foo     bar     baz     qux

In your specific case, what you can, then, do, is:

- debug:
    msg: "{{ output.stdout_lines | join('\n') }}"

Which would yield, with the usage of the debug callback:

TASK [debug] ***************************************************************
ok: [node1] => {}

MSG:

enbd-cstatd     5051/tcp                        # ENBD client statd
enbd-sstatd     5052/tcp                        # ENBD server statd
sip             5060/tcp                        # Session Initiation Protocol
sip             5060/udp
sip-tls         5061/tcp
sip-tls         5061/udp
pcrd            5151/tcp                        # PCR-1000 Daemon
xmpp-client     5222/tcp        jabber-client   # Jabber Client Connection
xmpp-server     5269/tcp        jabber-server   # Jabber Server Connection
cfengine        5308/tcp
mdns            5353/udp                        # Multicast DNS
noclog          5354/tcp                        # noclogd with TCP (nocol)
noclog          5354/udp                        # noclogd with UDP (nocol)
hostmon         5355/tcp                        # hostmon uses TCP (nocol)
hostmon         5355/udp                        # hostmon uses UDP (nocol)
postgresql      5432/tcp        postgres        # PostgreSQL Database
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