[Feature Request][zypper] Add parameter to simplify/reduce error output

[erichoog]

Summary

This is a feature request for the zypper module:

• When updating all system packages using this module and the task fails due to underlying OS issues(disk space).
• Massive XML dump on failure is hard to parse through to pick out relevant error messages
• Request to add option to parse only <message> tags in output on failure

Issue Details

When patching many systems with the zypper module we occasionally hit an issue where installing packages fails due to lack of free space on the client machines.

There are often many packages to be updated and when these failures occur there is alot of xml output from zypper (and the module) to parse through. This makes it harder to pick out the actual error message from the output.

Generally on a failure like this, only the text in the <message> tags are relevant instead of the entire xml output.

Proposed Solution

Ideally we could pass a parameter like simple_errors: true to the module and it would only dump the text in the <message> tags on failure instead of the entire xml output.

I have written some code for this but haven't contributed here before. Please let me know if this is something that others might be interested in.

Issue Type

Feature Idea

Component Name

zypper

Additional Information

Adding simple_errors: true would ensure only text from <message> tags are dumped to stout instead of the entire xml output on failure:

- name: Apply all available patches
  community.general.zypper:
    name: '*'
    state: latest
    type: patch
    simple_errors: true

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow the Ansible Code of Conduct

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Files identified in the description:

• plugins/modules/zypper.py

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

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[ansibullbot]

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[erichoog]

I could submit a PR for this if welcomed.

[felixfontein]

I think that should be ok!

[erichoog]

I will try and get a PR submitted this week for this.