Ansible: How to delete files and folders inside a directory?

Question

- name: Delete content & directory
  file:
    state: absent
    path: /home/mydata/web/

Note: this will delete the directory too.

Using shell module (idempotent too):

- shell: /bin/rm -rf /home/mydata/web/*

If there are dot/hidden files:

- shell: /bin/rm -rf /home/mydata/web/* /home/mydata/web/.*

Cleanest solution if you don't care about creation date and owner/permissions:

- file: path=/home/mydata/web state=absent
- file: path=/home/mydata/web state=directory

Remove the directory (basically a copy of https://stackoverflow.com/a/38201611/1695680), Ansible does this operation with rmtree under the hood.

- name: remove files and directories
  file:
    state: "{{ item }}"
    path: "/srv/deleteme/"
    owner: 1000  # set your owner, group, and mode accordingly
    group: 1000
    mode: '0777'
  with_items:
    - absent
    - directory

---

If you don't have the luxury of removing the whole directory and recreating it, you can scan it for files, (and directories), and delete them one by one. Which will take a while. You probably want to make sure you have [ssh_connection]\npipelining = True in your ansible.cfg on.

- block:
  - name: 'collect files'
    find:
      paths: "/srv/deleteme/"
      hidden: True
      recurse: True
      # file_type: any  # Added in ansible 2.3
    register: collected_files

  - name: 'collect directories'
    find:
      paths: "/srv/deleteme/"
      hidden: True
      recurse: True
      file_type: directory
    register: collected_directories

  - name: remove collected files and directories
    file:
      path: "{{ item.path }}"
      state: absent
    with_items: >
      {{
        collected_files.files
        + collected_directories.files
      }}

I really didn't like the rm solution, also ansible gives you warnings about using rm. So here is how to do it without the need of rm and without ansible warnings.

- hosts: all
  tasks:
  - name: Ansible delete file glob
    find:
      paths: /etc/Ansible
      patterns: "*.txt"
    register: files_to_delete

  - name: Ansible remove file glob
    file:
      path: "{{ item.path }}"
      state: absent
    with_items: "{{ files_to_delete.files }}"

source: http://www.mydailytutorials.com/ansible-delete-multiple-files-directories-ansible/

try the below command, it should work

- shell: ls -1 /some/dir
  register: contents

- file: path=/some/dir/{{ item }} state=absent
  with_items: {{ contents.stdout_lines }}

That's what I come up with:

- name: Get directory listing
  find:
    path: "{{ directory }}" 
    file_type: any
    hidden: yes
  register: directory_content_result

- name: Remove directory content
  file:
    path: "{{ item.path }}" 
    state: absent
  with_items: "{{ directory_content_result.files }}" 
  loop_control:
    label: "{{ item.path }}" 

First, we're getting directory listing with find, setting

• file_type to any, so we wouldn't miss nested directories and links
• hidden to yes, so we don't skip hidden files
• also, do not set recurse to yes, since it is not only unnecessary, but may increase execution time.

Then, we go through that list with file module. It's output is a bit verbose, so loop_control.label will help us with limiting output (found this advice here).

---

But I found previous solution to be somewhat slow, since it iterates through the content, so I went with:

- name: Get directory stats
  stat:
    path: "{{ directory }}"
  register: directory_stat

- name: Delete directory
  file:
    path: "{{ directory }}"
    state: absent

- name: Create directory
  file:
    path: "{{ directory }}"
    state: directory
    owner: "{{ directory_stat.stat.pw_name }}"
    group: "{{ directory_stat.stat.gr_name }}"
    mode: "{{ directory_stat.stat.mode }}"

• get directory properties with the stat
• delete directory
• recreate directory with the same properties.

That was enough for me, but you can add attributes as well, if you want.

Created an overall rehauled and fail-safe implementation from all comments and suggestions:

# collect stats about the dir
- name: check directory exists
  stat:
    path: '{{ directory_path }}'
  register: dir_to_delete

# delete directory if condition is true
- name: purge {{directory_path}}
  file:
    state: absent
    path: '{{ directory_path  }}'
  when: dir_to_delete.stat.exists and dir_to_delete.stat.isdir

# create directory if deleted (or if it didn't exist at all)
- name: create directory again
  file:
    state: directory
    path: '{{ directory_path }}'
  when: dir_to_delete is defined or dir_to_delete.stat.exist == False