fix: ensure idempotence by writing settings in sorted order

[richm]

Cause: On EL7, the underlying module uses an unordered dict, so the order of the settings being
written can change between role invocations.

Consequence: The role may report changed when nothing actually changed except the order.

Fix: The settings are sorted before being written so that the order is consistent.

Result: The role does not report changed when nothing has changed.

Signed-off-by: Rich Megginson rmeggins@redhat.com

Summary by Sourcery

Bug Fixes:

• Prevent spurious changes being reported by the role by sorting kernel settings before rendering them in the template.

[sourcery-ai]

Reviewer's guide (collapsed on small PRs)

Reviewer's Guide

Ensures idempotent generation of kernel settings by iterating over settings keys in sorted order before rendering, preventing spurious changes due to dictionary ordering differences on EL7.

Sequence diagram for idempotent kernel_settings template rendering

sequenceDiagram
    actor User
    participant AnsibleController
    participant TemplateEngine
    participant ManagedNode

    User->>AnsibleController: Run kernel_settings role
    AnsibleController->>TemplateEngine: Render kernel_settings.j2 with settings
    TemplateEngine->>TemplateEngine: Extract settings keys
    TemplateEngine->>TemplateEngine: Sort keys
    loop For each sorted key
        TemplateEngine->>TemplateEngine: Look up val = settings[key]
        alt val.state is absent
            TemplateEngine->>TemplateEngine: Skip writing this setting
        else val.state is not absent
            TemplateEngine->>TemplateEngine: Write line "key = val" in INI section
        end
    end
    TemplateEngine-->>AnsibleController: Rendered kernel_settings content
    AnsibleController->>ManagedNode: Compare and write file if changed
    ManagedNode-->>AnsibleController: No change if only order differed
    AnsibleController-->>User: Report idempotent result (changed only on real change)

Loading

File-Level Changes

Change	Details	Files
Make kernel settings template iterate over settings in a stable, sorted key order to avoid non-deterministic output.	Replace direct iteration over settings.items() with iteration over sorted settings.keys(). Lookup each value from the settings dict using the current key after sorting the keys. Preserve existing logic that skips settings marked with state=absent while benefiting from deterministic ordering.	templates/kernel_settings.j2

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[sourcery-ai]

Hey - I've left some high level feedback:

• Instead of iterating over settings.keys() | sort and then indexing back into the dict, consider using for key, val in settings | dictsort to get a stable, sorted key order in a more idiomatic and readable way.

Prompt for AI Agents

Please address the comments from this code review:

## Overall Comments
- Instead of iterating over `settings.keys() | sort` and then indexing back into the dict, consider using `for key, val in settings | dictsort` to get a stable, sorted key order in a more idiomatic and readable way.

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[richm]

[citest]