regex_search

Collection Note

This module is part of the ansible.builtin collection. To install the collection, use:

ansible-galaxy collection install ansible.builtin

Added in version 2.0.

Synopsis

• Search in a string to extract the part that matches the regular expression.

Parameters

Parameter	Defaults / Choices	Comments
_input str required		String to match against.
_regex str		Regular expression string that defines the match.
ignorecase bool		Force the search to be case insensitive if V(True), case sensitive otherwise.
multiline bool		Search across line endings if V(True), do not if otherwise.

Notes

Note

• Maps to Python's C(re.search).
• The substring matched by the group is accessible via the symbolic group name or the \{number} special sequence. See examples section.

Examples

# db => 'database42'
db: "{{ 'server1/database42' | regex_search('database[0-9]+') }}"

# Using inline regex flags instead of passing options to filter
# See https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html for more information
# on inline regex flags
# server => 'sErver1'
db: "{{ 'sErver1/database42' | regex_search('(?i)server([0-9]+)') }}"

# drinkat => 'BAR'
drinkat: "{{ 'foo\nBAR' | regex_search('^bar', multiline=True, ignorecase=True) }}"

# Extracts server and database id from a string using number
# (the substring matched by the group is accessible via the \number special sequence)
db: "{{ 'server1/database42' | regex_search('server([0-9]+)/database([0-9]+)', '\\1', '\\2') }}"
# => ['1', '42']

# Extracts dividend and divisor from a division
# (the substring matched by the group is accessible via the symbolic group name)
db: "{{ '21/42' | regex_search('(?P<dividend>[0-9]+)/(?P<divisor>[0-9]+)', '\\g<dividend>', '\\g<divisor>') }}"
# => ['21', '42']

Return Values

Key	Data Type	Description	Returned
_value	str	Matched string or C(None) if no match.