String interpolation

• "Hello, ${var.name}!"

Important concepts

• Input variables are like function arguments.
• Output values are like function return values.
• Local values are like a function’s temporary local variables.

variables "name" block

• Variables need to be defined before they can be used. E.g.

variable "zone" {
    type = string
    default = "us-central1-a"
}

• Idiomatic approach is to collect all the variable definition into a variables.tf file
• Variable values (if a default is not provided) can be:
  • Captured at the point of execution
  • Passed in via commandline
  • Defined in a terraform.tfvars file like so

  zone = "us-central1-b"
  

output "name" block

• A way to present data back to the user, e.g.

  value = google_compute_address.vm_static_ip.address

• Idiomatic approach is to put all the outputs in to a outputs.tf file

data "data source" "name" block

• Data sources allow data to be fetched or computed and stored to be used

Reference

• https://www.terraform.io/docs/configuration/data-sources.html

locals block

• Allows for the definition of local variables that can be used in multiple places
• Not limited to literals, can be expressions or other variables
• E.g.

locals {
  # Ids for multiple sets of EC2 instances, merged together
  instance_ids = concat(aws_instance.blue.*.id, aws_instance.green.*.id)
}

dynamic "varname" block

• Expressions can only be used in the top level block constructs when assigning a value to an argument.
• You can dynamically construct repeatable nested blocks like settings using a special dynamic block type, which is supported inside resource, data, provider, and provisioner blocks
• The parameter passed into the block becomes the name of the variable in the subblock
• E.g.

resource "aws_elastic_beanstalk_environment" "tfenvtest" {
  name                = "tf-test-name"
  application         = "${aws_elastic_beanstalk_application.tftest.name}"
  solution_stack_name = "64bit Amazon Linux 2018.03 v2.11.4 running Go 1.12.6"

  dynamic "setting" {
    for_each = var.settings
    content {
      namespace = setting.value["namespace"]
      name = setting.value["name"]
      value = setting.value["value"]
    }
  }
}

Collection functions

• lookup - returns the single value from a map with the ability to have a default - lookup(map, key, default)