How to tell what directory was created by ansible's unarchive module?

Question

I'm writing an ansible playbook to automate the installation of a piece of software. When I download the tarball from the website I have:

software-package-release.tar.gz

When untarred I'm left with the directory

software-package-v2.15/

Does ansible have any way of registering the directory created as part of the unarchive module?

I've tried with the following plays (I put the nrpe-lkdsflkdjf file there which contains a dir nrpe-2.15)

- name: Extract
  unarchive
    src:/tmp/nrpe-lkdsflkdjf
    dest: /tmp/
    copy: no
  register: tar_reg

- name: debug tar_reg
  debug: var=tar_reg

And this was the output of the debug:

ok: [IP-here] => {
    "tar_reg": {
        "changed": true, 
        "check_results": {
            "cmd": "/bin/gtar -C \"/tmp/\" --diff -f \"/tmp/nrpe-lkdsjflkdsjf\"", 
            "err": "/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/SECURITY: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/README.Solaris: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/init-script.debian.in: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/nrpe.spec.in: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/LEGAL: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/subst.in: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/sample-config: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/sample-config/nrpe.xinetd.in: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/sample-config/nrpe.cfg.in: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/package: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/package/solaris: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/package/solaris/pkg: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/package/solaris/pkg/preinstall: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/package/solaris/pkg/nrpe.xml: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/package/solaris/pkg/i.config: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/package/solaris/pkg/postinstall: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/package/solaris/pkg/r.config: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/package/solaris/pkg/nrpe: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/package/solaris/Makefile.in: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/nrpe.spec: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/README: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/src: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/src/acl.c: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/src/check_nrpe.c: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/src/snprintf.c: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/src/Makefile.in: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/src/utils.c: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/src/nrpe.c: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/config.guess: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/install-sh: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/contrib: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/contrib/nrpe_check_control.c: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/contrib/README.nrpe_check_control: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/init-script.in: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/docs: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/docs/NRPE.pdf: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/docs/NRPE.odt: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/init-script.suse.in: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/configure: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/config.sub: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/Changelog: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/Makefile.in: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/README.SSL: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/configure.in: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/update-version: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/include: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/include/dh.h: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/include/common.h: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/include/utils.h: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/include/acl.h: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/include/config.h.in: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n/bin/gtar: nrpe-2.15/include/nrpe.h: Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory\n", 
            "out": "", 
            "rc": 1, 
            "unarchived": false
        }, 
        "dest": "/tmp/", 
        "extract_results": {
            "cmd": "/bin/gtar -xf \"/tmp/nrpe-lkdsjflkdsjf\"", 
            "err": "", 
            "out": "", 
            "rc": 0
        }, 
        "gid": 0, 
        "group": "root", 
        "handler": "TarArchive", 
        "mode": "01777", 
        "owner": "root", 
        "size": 3072, 
        "src": "/tmp/nrpe-lkdsjflkdsjf", 
        "state": "directory", 
        "uid": 0
    }
}

Answer 1

The unarchive module does have the option to list the files - list_files. The output can be registered, and usually the first value in the array is the directory name.

The following worked for me:

- name: Extract files
  unarchive: 
    src: /tmp/my_archive.tar.gz
    dest: /mydir
    remote_src: yes
    list_files: yes
  register: archive_contents

archive_contents.files[0] will have your top level directory.

Answer 2

Update: see answer from @vinayak-thatte for correct answer.

---

Unarchive module doesn't know what's inside the archive – it just places all archive content into dest folder.

If you know in advance that there is or there may be a single folder inside the archive, you can make some test like this:

- name: Get dir 1 - fast - when you are sure that there is one and only one subfolder
  shell: tar tf file.tgz | head -1 | sed -e 's/\/.*//'
  changed_when: false
  register: tar_test

- debug: 'msg="Subfolder: {{tar_test.stdout}}"'

- name: Get dir 2 - slow - when you dont sure
  shell: tar tf file.tgz | sed -e 's/\/.*//' | sort | uniq
  changed_when: false
  register: tar_test

- debug: 'msg="Subfolder: {{tar_test.stdout}}"'
  when: tar_test.stdout_lines | count == 1

- debug: msg="No subfolder!"
  when: tar_test.stdout_lines | count > 1

First method is quicker than second, but it checks only one line of archive file listing – so you must me sure that there is only one subfolder inside.
Second method checks all paths in the archive and collects distinct names in the archive "root" – so if there is only one match (count == 1) it is very likely to be subfolder (or single file in the archive :-/), otherwise there are many entries in the archive "root".