Interpolate a variable in a shell command run by Ansible

Question

I want to run Ansible task similar to this one:

---
- name: symlink the nodejs executable to node
  command: ln -sf "$(which nodejs)" /usr/bin/node
  sudo: True

I found that the part "$(which nodejs)" would not be interpolated to string, but taken literalle - consequently, creating a malformed symlink.

How can I interpolate this part to a proper string with Ansible command module?

Answer 1

Well,

I was probably to eager to ask first rather than try to find solution myself. Here is one solution:

---
- name: Find path to nodejs
  command: which nodejs
  register: nodejs_path

- name: symlink the nodejs executable to node
  command: "ln -sf {{ item }} /usr/bin/node"
  sudo: True
  with_items: nodejs_path.stdout