1 files changed, 5 insertions, 8 deletions
diff --git a/lib/ansible/template/native_helpers.py b/lib/ansible/template/native_helpers.py
index c56d0d217f..11c14b7fa1 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/template/native_helpers.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/template/native_helpers.py
@@ -13,9 +13,6 @@ import types
 from jinja2._compat import text_type
 
 from jinja2.runtime import StrictUndefined
-
-from ansible.module_utils.common.text.converters import container_to_text
-from ansible.module_utils.six import PY2
 from ansible.parsing.yaml.objects import AnsibleVaultEncryptedUnicode
 
 
@@ -51,6 +48,10 @@ def ansible_native_concat(nodes):
             # See https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/52158
             # We do that only here because it is taken care of by text_type() in the else block below already.
             str(out)
+
+        # short circuit literal_eval when possible
+        if not isinstance(out, list):
+            return out
     else:
         if isinstance(nodes, types.GeneratorType):
             nodes = chain(head, nodes)
@@ -59,10 +60,6 @@ def ansible_native_concat(nodes):
         out = u''.join([text_type(v) for v in nodes])
 
     try:
-        out = literal_eval(out)
-        if PY2:
-            # ensure bytes are not returned back into Ansible from templating
-            out = container_to_text(out)
-        return out
+        return literal_eval(out)
     except (ValueError, SyntaxError, MemoryError):
         return out