Ansible datetime timezone conversion - datetime

Question

Is there a way to convert ansible date into a different timezone in a "debug" statement in my playbook ? I dont want a global timezone setting at the playbook level. I have this :
debug:
msg: "{{ '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S' | strftime(ansible_date_time.epoch) }}"
This works fine but displays time in UTC. I need the time to be displayed in EDT without setting timezone at the global playbook level. How do I accomplish this ?

Answer 1

If you use a command task to run date rather than relying on the ansible_date_time variable, you can set the timezone via an environment variable. E.g. the following playbook:
- hosts: localhost
vars:
ansible_python_interpreter: /usr/bin/python
tasks:
- command: "date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'"
register: date_utc
environment:
TZ: UTC
- command: "date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'"
register: date_us_eastern
environment:
TZ: US/Eastern
- debug:
msg:
- "{{ date_utc.stdout }}"
- "{{ date_us_eastern.stdout }}"
Results in this output:
PLAY [localhost] *****************************************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] ***********************************************************************
ok: [localhost]
TASK [command] *******************************************************************************
changed: [localhost]
TASK [command] *******************************************************************************
changed: [localhost]
TASK [debug] *********************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => {
"msg": [
"2020-05-12 15:21:05",
"2020-05-12 11:21:06"
]
}
PLAY RECAP ***********************************************************************************
localhost : ok=4 changed=2 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0