win_copy fails remote copy of empty source directory

[vdcloudcraft]

SUMMARY

win_copy fails remote copy of empty source folder to a non-existent dest folder

ISSUE TYPE

• Bug Report

COMPONENT NAME

win_copy

ANSIBLE VERSION

ansible [core 2.14.4]
  config file = /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg
  configured module search path = ['/home/runner/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /usr/lib/python3.9/site-packages/ansible
  ansible collection location = /home/runner/.ansible/collections:/usr/share/ansible/collections
  executable location = /usr/bin/ansible
  python version = 3.9.16 (main, Dec 21 2022, 10:57:18) [GCC 8.5.0 20210514 (Red Hat 8.5.0-17)] (/usr/bin/python3.9)
  jinja version = 3.1.2
  libyaml = True

COLLECTION VERSION

# /usr/share/ansible/collections/ansible_collections
Collection      Version
--------------- -------
ansible.windows 1.12.0

CONFIGURATION

CONFIG_FILE() = /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg

OS / ENVIRONMENT

Tested on Windows Server 2019

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

Create an empty folder and try to copy it to a non-existent folder on the same remote machine, having both paths end with slashes.

According to the documentation, this should create an empty folder at dest

- name: Fail empty copy
  hosts: someWindowsHost
  tasks:
    - name: Copy empty dir
      ansible.windows.win_copy:
        remote_src: true
        src: C:\emptyDir\
        dest: C:\emptyDir2\

EXPECTED RESULTS

An empty folder is created.

ACTUAL RESULTS

Ansible/PowerShell fails with the message below. The reason seems to be fairly straightforward as well.

Here the module runs Get-ChildItem against the source, which is an empty folder and thus will return nothing. In turn the loop in the next line will not run and never call the Copy-Folder function, which would create the new folder at dest.

A few lines further down $result.size = Get-FileSize -Path $remote_dest will fail, since there is nothing to check.

An exception occurred during task execution. To see the full traceback, use -vvv. The error was:    at Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetItemCommand.ProcessRecord()
fatal: [<redacted>]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "dest": "C:\\emptyDir2\\", "msg": "Unhandled exception while executing module: Cannot find path 'C:\\emptyDir2\\' because it does not exist.", "src": "C:\\emptyDir\\"}

[jborean93]

Looking at the behaviour of copy I can see the following

• If emptyDir2 doesn't exit then it will be created (it itself will be empty)
• If emptyDir2 does exist then no change is reported (also will be empty)

Does that follow your expectations?

[vdcloudcraft]

Yes, that would have been my expected result.

The setup below may be a solution in some cases, as it copies the entire src folder (no trailing slash in src) and does create dest.

ansible.windows.win_copy:
  remote_src: true
  src: C:\dir1\emptyDir
  dest: C:\dir2\ # does not exist yet

Unfortunately in my case I have no control over the actual name of emptyDir or its potential content (acutal values come from win_find), but need its content to be in a folder called emptyDir2.

I'm aware that I can work around this issue by ensuring dest exists using win_file: state=directory, but the documentation reads as if it should be possible with a single task. And I'd really appreciate if it did, because otherwise I'll have to start guarding against this edge case with win_file in multiple projects. :)