Chef template resource to execute if the source template changes?

Question

I'm deploying a package that requires a template be created in a specified directory every time a directory is unzipped.

A remote_file notifies my unzip action, that unzip action notifies the template resource, which in turn notifies other resources. This chain of notifications works as expected.

Below is my template resource:

template 'C:\\Program Files\\MyProgram\\program.yml' do
  source "my_program-#{node['program']['version']}.yml.erb"
  action   :nothing
  notifies :run, 'powershell_script[install-program]', :immediately
end

My question: Is there a way to have the template resource execute if I make a change to the source template? Right now it only executes the template resource if notified by my unzip action (due to my action :nothing).

However, it would be great to have a way for it to tell if the template itself has changed. Perhaps some kind of not_if or only_if statement?

Mr. Mr. · Accepted Answer · 2018-12-05T00:27:41

sounds to me that you avoid all the notification chaining if you will have your resources defined in the same recipe.

back to your questions, it sounds that setting action :create, which is the default action, will do the trick. from the template resource documentation

action :create

Create a file. If a file already exists (but does not match), update that file to match.

Chef template resource to execute if the source template changes?

1 Answers