From 094a0746b31f7ce9879dfa6fb2972930eb1cbab2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Martin Krizek <martin.krizek@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2022 17:13:34 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] ansible_concat: return strings only unless eval (#76634)

Fixes #76610
---
 changelogs/fragments/76610-empty-template-none.yml     |  2 ++
 lib/ansible/template/native_helpers.py                 |  2 +-
 test/integration/targets/template/tasks/main.yml       | 10 ++++++++++
 .../targets/template/templates/empty_template.j2       |  0
 4 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
 create mode 100644 changelogs/fragments/76610-empty-template-none.yml
 create mode 100644 test/integration/targets/template/templates/empty_template.j2

diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/76610-empty-template-none.yml b/changelogs/fragments/76610-empty-template-none.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..a69d5114881
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/76610-empty-template-none.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+bugfixes:
+  - "Fix for when templating empty template file resulted in file with string 'None' (https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/76610)"
diff --git a/lib/ansible/template/native_helpers.py b/lib/ansible/template/native_helpers.py
index c75d356b38a..79091d0c9a9 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/template/native_helpers.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/template/native_helpers.py
@@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ def ansible_concat(nodes, convert_data, variable_start_string):
     head = list(islice(nodes, 2))
 
     if not head:
-        return None
+        return ''
 
     if len(head) == 1:
         out = _fail_on_undefined(head[0])
diff --git a/test/integration/targets/template/tasks/main.yml b/test/integration/targets/template/tasks/main.yml
index d97aa4d550d..d07a605f771 100644
--- a/test/integration/targets/template/tasks/main.yml
+++ b/test/integration/targets/template/tasks/main.yml
@@ -756,3 +756,13 @@
 - assert:
     that:
       - out.rc == 0
+
+- template:
+    src: empty_template.j2
+    dest: "{{ output_dir }}/empty_template.templated"
+
+- assert:
+    that:
+      - test
+  vars:
+    test: "{{ lookup('file', '{{ output_dir }}/empty_template.templated')|length == 0 }}"
diff --git a/test/integration/targets/template/templates/empty_template.j2 b/test/integration/targets/template/templates/empty_template.j2
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..e69de29bb2d