Unable to set bool value in Xfce4 configuration

[oliversalzburg]

Summary

I'm trying to set the bool value /general/SaveOnExit in xfce4-session to false. Ansible says it performs this change successfully, but the value remains unchanged after running the task.

Issue Type

Bug Report

Component Name

community.general.xfconf

Ansible Version

ansible [core 2.13.2]
  config file = None
  configured module search path = ['/home/oliver/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /home/oliver/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/ansible
  ansible collection location = /home/oliver/.ansible/collections:/usr/share/ansible/collections
  executable location = /home/oliver/.local/bin/ansible
  python version = 3.9.2 (default, Feb 28 2021, 17:03:44) [GCC 10.2.1 20210110]
  jinja version = 3.1.2
  libyaml = True

Community.general Version

# /home/oliver/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/ansible_collections
Collection        Version
----------------- -------
community.general 5.3.0  

Configuration

$ ansible-config dump --only-changed

empty

OS / Environment

Debian 11 Xfce4

Steps to Reproduce

- name: Don't save session on exit
  community.general.xfconf:
    channel: xfce4-session
    property: /general/SaveOnExit
    value_type: bool
    value: "false"

Expected Results

I expected that the "Save session for future logins" option in the logout dialog is disabled by default. More technically, I expect xfconf-query -c xfce4-session -p /general/SaveOnExit to return false.

Actual Results

Whenever I run the above task, it will indicate that it changed the value. But when I check the value, it's unchanged.

When I manually execute the module, after retaining it with ANSIBLE_KEEP_REMOTE_FILES=1, I always get the exact some output, no matter how often I run it. It always says it changed the value from true to false, but subsequent checks clearly indicate the value is unchanged.

$ python3 AnsiballZ_xfconf.py execute

{"changed": true, "channel": "xfce4-session", "property": "/general/SaveOnExit", "value": "false", "previous_value": "true", "type": "bool", "is_array": false, "failed": false, "invocation": {"module_args": {"channel": "xfce4-session", "property": "/general/SaveOnExit", "value_type": ["bool"], "value": ["false"], "state": "present", "force_array": false, "disable_facts": true}}}

Additionally, if I just use a ansible.builtin.command: xfconf-query -c xfce4-session -p /general/SaveOnExit -t bool -s false -n instead, I get my resulting behavior and the value is instantly changed.

Sadly I don't understand enough of Ansible yet to see how things could be going wrong from here.

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow the Ansible Code of Conduct

[ansibullbot]

Files identified in the description:

• plugins/modules/system/xfconf.py

If these files are incorrect, please update the component name section of the description or use the !component bot command.

click here for bot help

[ansibullbot]

cc @jbenden @russoz
click here for bot help

[felixfontein]

I can reproduce this. For me, the command run by the module is ['/usr/bin/xfconf-query', '--channel', 'xfce4-session', '--property', '/general/SaveOnExit', '--create', '--type', 'bool', '--set', 'False']. Note the False instead of false.

Adding value = 'true' if value else 'false' as line 18 of plugins/module_utils/xfconf.py solves the problem for me. I think 8ba3d94 introduced this problem.

[felixfontein]

#5007 should fix this.

[oliversalzburg]

Awesome! Thanks a lot.

I was wondering about the bool handling, because I saw some examples online use "false" (like in my code) and not False. I was trying a couple different approaches in that area, but I have very little experience with Python and didn't really know what I was doing.

Either way, could you let me know how you were able to pull the final CLI argument list from it? I was trying to mess with the code to get to it myself, but didn't have enough understanding of it.

[felixfontein]

Either way, could you let me know how you were able to pull the final CLI argument list from it? I was trying to mess with the code to get to it myself, but didn't have enough understanding of it.

I'm sure @russoz knows a better way to do this, I simply used a cheap print() style way: insert import q; q.q(self.cmd) into plugins/module_utils/cmd_runner.py (before the module.run_command) (using the q package).

[russoz]

hi @oliversalzburg thanks for reporting the bug and thanks @felixfontein for quickly pinning down a fix for it. After this PR goes through, I will submit another one adding a test case that will pick on that problem - I have tested it against main and Felix's branch, getting failure and success respectively.

About seeing the resulting command line, I think I made a snafu over time: there used to be a resulting variable from the module giving that information but I believe that was removed in that same commit. I should come up with yet another PR fixing that and checking for its existence and value in the unit tests.