file: return 'useful' error message for recursion error (#57222)

* file: return 'useful' error message for recursion error

Fixes #56397

* Fix line length

* Re-phrase the error message

changelogs/fragments/56397-file-return-more-useful-error-for-recursion.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+bugfixes:
+  - file - return more useful error message for recursion error (https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/56397)

lib/ansible/modules/files/file.py

@@ -318,6 +318,8 @@ def get_state(path):
 # This should be moved into the common file utilities
 def recursive_set_attributes(b_path, follow, file_args, mtime, atime):
     changed = False
+
+    try:
         for b_root, b_dirs, b_files in os.walk(b_path):
             for b_fsobj in b_dirs + b_files:
                 b_fsname = os.path.join(b_root, b_fsobj)
@@ -347,6 +349,13 @@ def recursive_set_attributes(b_path, follow, file_args, mtime, atime):
                             tmp_file_args['path'] = to_native(b_fsname, errors='surrogate_or_strict')
                             changed |= module.set_fs_attributes_if_different(tmp_file_args, changed, expand=False)
                             changed |= update_timestamp_for_file(tmp_file_args['path'], mtime, atime)
+    except RuntimeError as e:
+        # on Python3 "RecursionError" is raised which is derived from "RuntimeError"
+        # TODO once this function is moved into the common file utilities, this should probably raise more general exception
+        raise AnsibleModuleError(
+            results={'msg': "Could not recursively set attributes on %s. Original error was: '%s'" % (to_native(b_path), to_native(e))}
+        )
+
     return changed