How to check if a file exists in Ansible?

Question

I have to check whether a file exists in /etc/. If the file exists then I have to skip the task. Here is the code I am using:

- name: checking th         


        

Answer 1

Discovered that calling stat is slow and collects a lot of info that is not required for file existence check.
After spending some time searching for solution, i discovered following solution, which works much faster:

- raw: test -e /path/to/something && echo true || echo false
  register: file_exists

- debug: msg="Path exists"
  when: file_exists == true