[chef] Re: RE: Ohai Chefs! - Template writing issue.

[Daniel DeLeo < >]

On Wednesday, July 23, 2014 at 10:09 AM, Phillip Roberts wrote:

>  
> Is there a way to make a recipe only write a template file if the file 
> doesn’t exist or if the template has changed?
>  
> For instance, I have a recipe that generates zone files for bind based off 
> of a list of domains in a data bag. However, on every chef-client run, it 
> is regenerating the file, which is also regenerating the serial number.  
>  
> Any assistance would be appreciated.  
>  
> Thanks,  
>  
> Phillip Roberts | Sr. Linux Systems Administrator

That’s how chef works now. Specifically, it renders the template to a 
tempfile and then compares the content with the existing file and makes a 
change if there’s a difference. I’d guess there’s something volatile in your 
template logic that produces logically equivalent files with different 
content. Chef should be showing you diffs of what changed, which should help 
make it more obvious what’s going on. Sharing the relevant portions of your 
templates would help us help you. Generally, you might need to sort some of 
your data to ensure a stable order before you loop over it in your templates.

--  
Daniel DeLeo