Dynamically excluded tasks are still evaluated

[foben]

ISSUE TYPE

• Bug Report

COMPONENT NAME

include_tasks

ANSIBLE VERSION

ansible-playbook 2.5.0
  config file = /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg
  configured module search path = [u'/home/felix/.ansible/plugins/modules', u'/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible-2.5.0-py2.7.egg/ansible
  executable location = /usr/bin/ansible-playbook
  python version = 2.7.13 (default, May 10 2017, 20:04:28) [GCC 6.3.1 20161221 (Red Hat 6.3.1-1)]

CONFIGURATION

ANSIBLE_NOCOWS(env: ANSIBLE_NOCOWS) = True
PERSISTENT_CONNECT_TIMEOUT(/etc/ansible/ansible.cfg) = 30

OS / ENVIRONMENT

Fedora 24, running local playbook

SUMMARY

The include_tasks feature does not behave as expected. Particularly the 'dynamic' aspect that is emphasized in the documentation does not work.
Executing the playbook.yml posted below:

ansible-playbook playbook.yml

It seems to me that the pre 2.4 behavior is still present - the condition is simply applied to every single included task, instead of dynamically skipping the include due to the failing conditional.
The documentation here suggests a different behavior.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

playbook.yml:

---
- hosts: 127.0.0.1
  gather_facts: no

  tasks:
  
  - name: "Include Task"
    include_tasks: include.yml
    when: False

include.yml:

- name: "Include 1"
  debug:
    msg: "Include 1"

- name: "Include 2"
  debug:
    msg: "Include 2"

- name: "Include 3"
  debug:
    msg: "Include 3"

EXPECTED RESULTS

Expected something along those lines:

PLAY [127.0.0.1] *********************************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [Include Task] *********************************************************************************************************************************************
skipping: [127.0.0.1]

PLAY RECAP ***************************************************************************************************************************************************
127.0.0.1                  : ok=0    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0   

ACTUAL RESULTS

PLAY [127.0.0.1] *********************************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [Include 1] *********************************************************************************************************************************************
skipping: [127.0.0.1]

TASK [Include 2] *********************************************************************************************************************************************
skipping: [127.0.0.1]

TASK [Include 3] *********************************************************************************************************************************************
skipping: [127.0.0.1]

PLAY RECAP ***************************************************************************************************************************************************
127.0.0.1                  : ok=0    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0   

[sivel]

You seem to be mixing terms here. You reference include_tasks which is the dynamic version, however your playbook is using import_tasks which is the static version.

[foben]

I'm sorry, I copied the playbook in the wrong version. I tried import_tasks to compare the two.
I am actually referring to the dynamic version, include_tasks. I have updated the example playbook accordingly.
As a side note: both import_tasks and include_tasks produce the exact output in this example,
which also highlights the issue.

[sivel]

Ok, it seems this was broken in e609618

Since e609618 include_tasks and import_tasks both seem to work as import_tasks was designed to.

cc @jimi-c

[sivel]

An updated playbook that uses both:

---
- hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
  - name: "Include Task"
    include_tasks: include.yml
    when: False

  - name: "Import Task"
    import_tasks: include.yml
    when: False

[sivel]

I've also put together a gist to show this behavior:

https://gist.github.com/sivel/a49acdc41faa609274ed11141b6e99eb

[foben]

One further note: The commit has also been cherry-picked to the stable-2.4 branch, which is where I noticed it initially:

ef96329