<p dir="auto">Currently when creating symlink using file command I get:<br>
msg: src file does not exist<br>
There are rare instances where it is desirable to have ability to create such symlinks, so I'd like to see at least a flag to disable this check.</p>
<h5 dir="auto">ISSUE TYPE</h5>

<ul dir="auto">
<li>Bug Report</li>
</ul>
<h5 dir="auto">COMPONENT NAME</h5>
<p dir="auto">ansible-playbook</p>
<h5 dir="auto">ANSIBLE VERSION</h5>
<p dir="auto">2.4.2</p>
<div class="snippet-clipboard-content notranslate position-relative overflow-auto" data-snippet-clipboard-copy-content="ERROR! Unexpected Exception, this is probably a bug: unsupported operand type(s) for %: 'bytes' and 'bytes'
the full traceback was:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File &quot;/home/grey/py2_env/bin/ansible&quot;, line 85, in &lt;module&gt;
    mycli = getattr(__import__(&quot;ansible.cli.%s&quot; % sub, fromlist=[myclass]), myclass)
  File &quot;/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/cli/__init__.py&quot;, line 38, in &lt;module&gt;
    from ansible.inventory.manager import InventoryManager
  File &quot;/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/inventory/manager.py&quot;, line 44, in &lt;module&gt;
    IGNORED_EXTS = [b'%s$' % to_bytes(re.escape(x)) for x in C.INVENTORY_IGNORE_EXTS]
  File &quot;/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/inventory/manager.py&quot;, line 44, in &lt;listcomp&gt;
    IGNORED_EXTS = [b'%s$' % to_bytes(re.escape(x)) for x in C.INVENTORY_IGNORE_EXTS]
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for %: 'bytes' and 'bytes'"><pre class="notranslate"><code class="notranslate">ERROR! Unexpected Exception, this is probably a bug: unsupported operand type(s) for %: 'bytes' and 'bytes'
the full traceback was:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/grey/py2_env/bin/ansible", line 85, in &lt;module&gt;
    mycli = getattr(__import__("ansible.cli.%s" % sub, fromlist=[myclass]), myclass)
  File "/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/cli/__init__.py", line 38, in &lt;module&gt;
    from ansible.inventory.manager import InventoryManager
  File "/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/inventory/manager.py", line 44, in &lt;module&gt;
    IGNORED_EXTS = [b'%s$' % to_bytes(re.escape(x)) for x in C.INVENTORY_IGNORE_EXTS]
  File "/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/inventory/manager.py", line 44, in &lt;listcomp&gt;
    IGNORED_EXTS = [b'%s$' % to_bytes(re.escape(x)) for x in C.INVENTORY_IGNORE_EXTS]
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for %: 'bytes' and 'bytes'
</code></pre></div>
<h5 dir="auto">CONFIGURATION</h5>
<p dir="auto">as in version</p>
<h5 dir="auto">OS / ENVIRONMENT</h5>
<p dir="auto">CentOS 7.4, Ubuntu 16.04, Gentoo</p>
<h5 dir="auto">SUMMARY</h5>
<p dir="auto">On any command</p>
<div class="snippet-clipboard-content notranslate position-relative overflow-auto" data-snippet-clipboard-copy-content="ERROR! Unexpected Exception, this is probably a bug: unsupported operand type(s) for %: 'bytes' and 'bytes'
the full traceback was:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File &quot;/home/grey/py2_env/bin/ansible-config&quot;, line 85, in &lt;module&gt;
    mycli = getattr(__import__(&quot;ansible.cli.%s&quot; % sub, fromlist=[myclass]), myclass)
  File &quot;/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/cli/__init__.py&quot;, line 38, in &lt;module&gt;
    from ansible.inventory.manager import InventoryManager
  File &quot;/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/inventory/manager.py&quot;, line 44, in &lt;module&gt;
    IGNORED_EXTS = [b'%s$' % to_bytes(re.escape(x)) for x in C.INVENTORY_IGNORE_EXTS]
  File &quot;/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/inventory/manager.py&quot;, line 44, in &lt;listcomp&gt;
    IGNORED_EXTS = [b'%s$' % to_bytes(re.escape(x)) for x in C.INVENTORY_IGNORE_EXTS]
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for %: 'bytes' and 'bytes'"><pre class="notranslate"><code class="notranslate">ERROR! Unexpected Exception, this is probably a bug: unsupported operand type(s) for %: 'bytes' and 'bytes'
the full traceback was:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/grey/py2_env/bin/ansible-config", line 85, in &lt;module&gt;
    mycli = getattr(__import__("ansible.cli.%s" % sub, fromlist=[myclass]), myclass)
  File "/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/cli/__init__.py", line 38, in &lt;module&gt;
    from ansible.inventory.manager import InventoryManager
  File "/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/inventory/manager.py", line 44, in &lt;module&gt;
    IGNORED_EXTS = [b'%s$' % to_bytes(re.escape(x)) for x in C.INVENTORY_IGNORE_EXTS]
  File "/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/inventory/manager.py", line 44, in &lt;listcomp&gt;
    IGNORED_EXTS = [b'%s$' % to_bytes(re.escape(x)) for x in C.INVENTORY_IGNORE_EXTS]
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for %: 'bytes' and 'bytes'
</code></pre></div>
<h5 dir="auto">STEPS TO REPRODUCE</h5>
<div class="snippet-clipboard-content notranslate position-relative overflow-auto" data-snippet-clipboard-copy-content="# virtualenv -p python2 ~/py2_env
# ~/py2_env/bin/pip install ansible
# ~/py2_env/bin/ansible --version"><pre class="notranslate"><code class="notranslate"># virtualenv -p python2 ~/py2_env
# ~/py2_env/bin/pip install ansible
# ~/py2_env/bin/ansible --version
</code></pre></div>
<h5 dir="auto">EXPECTED RESULTS</h5>
<div class="snippet-clipboard-content notranslate position-relative overflow-auto" data-snippet-clipboard-copy-content="ERROR! Unexpected Exception, this is probably a bug: unsupported operand type(s) for %: 'bytes' and 'bytes'
the full traceback was:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File &quot;/home/grey/py2_env/bin/ansible&quot;, line 85, in &lt;module&gt;
    mycli = getattr(__import__(&quot;ansible.cli.%s&quot; % sub, fromlist=[myclass]), myclass)
  File &quot;/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/cli/__init__.py&quot;, line 38, in &lt;module&gt;
    from ansible.inventory.manager import InventoryManager
  File &quot;/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/inventory/manager.py&quot;, line 44, in &lt;module&gt;
    IGNORED_EXTS = [b'%s$' % to_bytes(re.escape(x)) for x in C.INVENTORY_IGNORE_EXTS]
  File &quot;/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/inventory/manager.py&quot;, line 44, in &lt;listcomp&gt;
    IGNORED_EXTS = [b'%s$' % to_bytes(re.escape(x)) for x in C.INVENTORY_IGNORE_EXTS]
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for %: 'bytes' and 'bytes'"><pre class="notranslate"><code class="notranslate">ERROR! Unexpected Exception, this is probably a bug: unsupported operand type(s) for %: 'bytes' and 'bytes'
the full traceback was:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/grey/py2_env/bin/ansible", line 85, in &lt;module&gt;
    mycli = getattr(__import__("ansible.cli.%s" % sub, fromlist=[myclass]), myclass)
  File "/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/cli/__init__.py", line 38, in &lt;module&gt;
    from ansible.inventory.manager import InventoryManager
  File "/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/inventory/manager.py", line 44, in &lt;module&gt;
    IGNORED_EXTS = [b'%s$' % to_bytes(re.escape(x)) for x in C.INVENTORY_IGNORE_EXTS]
  File "/home/grey/py2_env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/inventory/manager.py", line 44, in &lt;listcomp&gt;
    IGNORED_EXTS = [b'%s$' % to_bytes(re.escape(x)) for x in C.INVENTORY_IGNORE_EXTS]
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for %: 'bytes' and 'bytes'
</code></pre></div>