How to avoid comment character "#" in Ansible module lineinfile?

Question

How can I avoid characters in Ansible lineinfile module?

Here is the line I want to insert on the server:

EMAIL=' [e-mail] ' # Server notification email address enter only 1 address

But when I try to do the following, Ansible refuses to parse it due to YAML errors:

line="EMAIL='{{ email_address }}' # Server notification email address enter only 1 address"

I guess this is because I have a strange combination of double quotes, single quotes, the same character and the pound symbol.

Answer 1

The problem is really # in your line - for some reason.

Although you can easily prevent a parsing error using this trick:

 line="EMAIL='{{ email_address }}' {{ '#' }} Server notification email address enter only 1 address" 

Answer 2

For comments of a longer form or for readability, you can also add comments as vars:

 name: Do something vars: comment: '# Server notification email address enter only 1 address' lineinfile: ... line="EMAIL='{{ email_address }}' {{ comment }}"