Extract a specific pattern in Ansible

Question

I need to extract a specific value (release version in my case) from a string. I don't know how regex work in Ansible. Below is my Play -

---
 - name: Getting the status of current deployment
   stat:
     path: /opt/tomcat/apps/myapp
   register: p

 - debug:
     msg: "The value of symlink is {{ p.stat.lnk_target }}"

 - debug:
     msg: "{{ p.stat.lnk_target.split('/')[4]}}"

Output:

Getting the status of current deployment...
Monday 18 May 2020  11:18:43 +0100 (0:00:01.580)       0:00:01.812 ************
  server1 ok
set_fact...
Monday 18 May 2020  11:18:43 +0100 (0:00:00.552)       0:00:02.364 ************
  server1 ok
debug...
Monday 18 May 2020  11:18:43 +0100 (0:00:00.077)       0:00:02.442 ************
  server1 ok: {
    "changed": false,
    "msg": "The value of symlink is /app/tomcat/releases/Release1.40.0-07/myapp/webapp"
}
debug...
Monday 18 May 2020  11:35:20 +0100 (0:00:00.080)       0:00:02.234 ************
  myvm-kn-u1 ok: {
    "changed": false,
    "msg": "Release1.40.0-07"
}

I want to extract the release number from it and put it in a variable. For example in the above output it is 1.40.0-07

Let me know if someone can guide. Tried to look into google but couldn't find anything.

Answer 1

I think the best way is use regex_replace

In your case

- debug:
     msg: "{{ p.stat.lnk_target.split('/')[4] | regex_replace('^Release(.*)$', '\\1') }}"

May be you need to adjust the Regex little bit.