Poise-File Cookbook

A Chef cookbook for advanced file management.

To write out a JSON file from node attributes:

poise_file '/etc/myapp.json' do
  content node['myapp']
end

To update a file in place:

poise_file '/etc/hosts' do
  content 'otherhostname'
  pattern 'myhostname'
  pattern_location :replace
end

The poise_file resource extends the core file resource to support formats and patterns.

If the file path ends with .json or .yaml/.yml and the content property is a Hash or Array object, it will be automatically converted. You can also explicitly set the format property to :json or :yaml to force formatting.

Using replacement patterns allows editing files in-place in a structured manner. This is similar to the FileEdit API or line cookbook/resource. The pattern property takes a RegExp object or string pattern to match against. The value of pattern_location controls how the content gets used relative to the pattern.

• :replace – content replaces the matching section. If the pattern does not match, the content is not changed.
• :replace_or_add – content replaces the matching section. If the pattern does not match, the content is appended to the end of the file.
• :before – content is inserted immediately before the matching section. If the pattern does not match, the content is not changed.
• :after – content is inserted immediately after the matching section. If the pattern does not match, the content is not changed.

You can also pass a Proc to perform arbitrary manipulations:

poise_file '/etc/myapp.conf' do
  pattern proc {|existing_content| existing_content.tr('a-z', 'n-za-m') }
end

If you have an in-place editing scenario not handled by these operations, please let me know by filing an issue.

All actions are the same as the core file resource.

• format – File serialization format. One of :text, :json, or :yaml. (default: auto-detect)
• pattern – Regular expression pattern or object to search for.
• pattern_location – Mode to use for the pattern replacement. One of :replace, :replace_or_add, :before, :after. (default: :replace_or_add)

All other properties as the same as the core file resource.

Development sponsored by SAP.

The Poise test server infrastructure is sponsored by Rackspace.

Copyright 2017, Noah Kantrowitz

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.