diff --git a/library/slurp b/library/slurp
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..8b80e5da4b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/library/slurp
@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+#!/usr/bin/python
+
+# (c) 2012, Michael DeHaan <michael.dehaan@gmail.com>
+#
+# This file is part of Ansible
+#
+# Ansible is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
+# (at your option) any later version.
+#
+# Ansible is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+# GNU General Public License for more details.
+#
+# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+# along with Ansible.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+import sys
+import os
+import shlex
+import base64
+
+try:
+   import json
+except ImportError:
+   import simplejson as json
+
+# ===========================================
+# convert arguments of form a=b c=d
+# to a dictionary
+
+if len(sys.argv) == 1:
+    sys.exit(1)
+argfile = sys.argv[1]
+if not os.path.exists(argfile):
+    sys.exit(1)
+items = shlex.split(open(argfile, 'r').read())
+
+params = {}
+for x in items:
+    (k, v) = x.split("=")
+    params[k] = v
+source  = params['src']
+
+# ==========================================
+ 
+# raise an error if there is no template metadata
+if not os.path.exists(source):
+    print json.dumps(dict(
+        failed = 1,
+        msg    = "file not found: %s" % metadata
+    ))
+    sys.exit(1)
+
+if not os.access(source, os.R_OK):
+    print json.dumps(dict(
+        failed = 1,
+        msg    = "file is not readable: %s" % source
+    ))
+    sys.exit(1)
+
+# ==========================================
+
+data = file(source).read()
+data = base64.b64encode(data)
+
+print json.dumps(dict(content=data, encoding='base64'))
+sys.exit(0)
+