Showing how Ansible `register` nicely handles `with_items` loops.

playbook.yml

# Simple playbook to understand and illustrate how nicely ansible handles registering output as part of a `with_items` loop.
# To call:
#   $> ansible-playbook playbook.yml

---

- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
  - stat:
      path: "/tmp"
    register: my_stat_output

  - debug:
      msg: "{{ my_stat_output }}" #<-- this is a single output dict


- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
  - stat:
      path: "/{{ item }}"
    register: my_stat_output
    with_items:
      - "tmp"
      - "etc"

  - debug:
      msg: "{{ my_stat_output }}" #<-- this is a ***list*** of dicts. Win.

results.json

# First Stat - no loop
ok: [localhost] => {
    "msg": {
        "changed": false, 
        "stat": {
          ...
        }
    }
}

# ------------------------------------------

# Second stat - with_items loop
ok: [localhost] => {
    "msg": {
        "changed": false, 
        "msg": "All items completed", 
        "results": [
            {
                "_ansible_item_result": true, 
                "_ansible_no_log": false, 
                "_ansible_parsed": true, 
                "changed": false, 
                "invocation": {
                    "module_args": {
                        "checksum_algorithm": "sha1", 
                        "follow": false, 
                        "get_attributes": true, 
                        "get_checksum": true, 
                        "get_md5": true, 
                        "get_mime": true, 
                        "path": "/tmp"
                    }
                }, 
                "item": "tmp", 
                "stat": {
                  ...
                }
            }, 
            {
                "_ansible_item_result": true, 
                "_ansible_no_log": false, 
                "_ansible_parsed": true, 
                "changed": false, 
                "invocation": {
                    "module_args": {
                        "checksum_algorithm": "sha1", 
                        "follow": false, 
                        "get_attributes": true, 
                        "get_checksum": true, 
                        "get_md5": true, 
                        "get_mime": true, 
                        "path": "/etc"
                    }
                }, 
                "item": "etc", 
                "stat": {
                  ...
                }
            }
        ]
    }
}