community.general.osx_defaults: Include stderr in error messages

[josephshanak]

SUMMARY

Previously community.general.osx_defaults included the stdout in error messages when defaults returned a non-zero exit code. This was usually blank and not helpful. This PR changes it to include the stderr.

ISSUE TYPE

• Bugfix Pull Request
• Docs Pull Request

COMPONENT NAME

osx_defaults

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Example:

This task results in an error without become: true

- name: "Disable Automatic Quote Substitution"
  community.general.osx_defaults:
    state: present
    domain: NSGlobalDomain
    key: "NSAutomaticQuoteSubstitutionEnabled"
    type: bool
    value: false

Before: no helpful information is included in the error:

fatal: [host]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "msg": "An error occurred while writing value to defaults: "}

After: stderr is included in the error

TASK [Disable Automatic Quote Substitution] ***************************************************************************************************
fatal: [host]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "msg": "An error occurred while writing value to defaults: 2023-02-18 05:03:19.888 defaults[8711:1213879
2] Could not write domain Apple Global Domain; exiting\n"}

This does not change the case when the task is successful:

- name: "Disable Automatic Quote Substitution"
  community.general.osx_defaults:
    state: present
    domain: NSGlobalDomain
    key: "NSAutomaticQuoteSubstitutionEnabled"
    type: bool
    value: false
  become: true

TASK [Disable Automatic Quote Substitution] ***************************************************************************************************
ok: [host]

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[github-actions]

Docs Build 📝

Thank you for contribution!✨

This PR has been merged and your docs changes will be incorporated when they are next published.

[felixfontein]

Thanks for your contribution! Here are some first comments.

In the PR description you mention that stdout is "usually" blank. Does that mean that there are some cases where it is not? If that's the case, then better include both stdout and stderr.

[josephshanak]

Thanks for your contribution! Here are some first comments.

In the PR description you mention that stdout is "usually" blank. Does that mean that there are some cases where it is not? If that's the case, then better include both stdout and stderr.

I am not aware of a case where errors are included in stdout. AFAICT the error messages always come through stderr. I tested the 4 commands with bogus values and all of them produced error messages via stderr:

$ defaults read-type asdfsaf adasf 2> /dev/null
$ defaults read asdfsaf adasf 2> /dev/null
$ defaults write asdfsaf adasf 2> /dev/null
$ defaults delete asdfsaf adasf 2> /dev/null
$ defaults read-type asdfsaf adasf
2023-02-18 17:49:38.337 defaults[18182:12991361]
The domain/default pair of (asdfsaf, adasf) does not exist
$ defaults read asdfsaf adasf
2023-02-18 17:49:42.732 defaults[18222:12991554]
The domain/default pair of (asdfsaf, adasf) does not exist
$ defaults read-type asdfsaf adasf
2023-02-18 17:49:47.287 defaults[18262:12991755]
The domain/default pair of (asdfsaf, adasf) does not exist
$ defaults delete asdfsaf adasf
2023-02-18 17:51:16.002 defaults[18355:12992825]
Domain (asdfsaf) not found.
Defaults have not been changed.

The man page does not specify anything about error handling, return codes, or stdout/stderr.

[felixfontein]

Looks good to me! If nobody objects, I'll merge this the upcoming weekend.

[patchback]

Backport to stable-6: 💚 backport PR created

✅ Backport PR branch: patchback/backports/stable-6/92544993c0b60229e05d69da32e1e687684ceed6/pr-6011

Backported as #6080

🤖 @patchback
I'm built with octomachinery and
my source is open — https://github.com/sanitizers/patchback-github-app.

[felixfontein]

@josephshanak thank you very much for your contribution!