I want files in the src directory to copy to the dest directory but I don't want the files with the same name to copy over. Does anyone know how I can do that?
- name: Copy files but not the ones that have the same name
copy:
src: <src_dir>
dest: <dest_dir>
Use the backup option of the copy module.
- copy:
src: foo
dest: /tmp/bar
backup: true
This will create multiple files, of which, the one with the name specified in dest parameters will be the one representing the last run of Ansible.
For example:
$ ls -l /tmp/
total 12
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 150 Mar 20 16:30 bar
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 127 Mar 20 16:20 bar.249.2023-03-20@16:20:44~
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 148 Mar 20 16:20 bar.329.2023-03-20@16:30:17~
Q: "Don't copy the files with the same name."
A: Set the parameter force to false. Quoting
If false, the file will only be transferred if the destination does not exist.
- copy:
src: /tmp/test/src/
dest: /tmp/test/dest/
force: false
Example.
Given the files
shell> tree /tmp/test/
/tmp/test/
├── dest
│ └── a
└── src
├── a
├── b
└── c
2 directories, 4 files
shell> cat /tmp/test/src/*
src
src
src
shell> cat /tmp/test/dest/*
dest
The playbook
- hosts: localhost
tasks:
- copy:
src: /tmp/test/src/
dest: /tmp/test/dest/
force: false
will copy the files b and c only because the file a exists
shell> tree /tmp/test/
/tmp/test/
├── dest
│ ├── a
│ ├── b
│ └── c
└── src
├── a
├── b
└── c
2 directories, 6 files
shell> cat /tmp/test/dest/*
dest
src
src
