Not accepting maps from a var file!

[jsonmaur]

Terraform Version: v0.7.0
Affected Resource: Terraform Core

terraform.tvfars

somemap = {
  foo = "bar"
  baz = "qux"
}

main.tf

variable "somemap" {
  type = "map"
}

output "somemap" {
  value = "${var.somemap}"
}

This should simply output the map. But instead, I get this error:
variable somemap should be type map, got list

It works as expected if I run TF_VAR_somemap='{foo = "bar", baz = "qux"}' terraform apply. Another interesting tidbit--if I change the var type to variable "somemap" { type = "list" }, I get the error: variable somemap should be type list, got list.

According to the docs here, this should work.

[lamanotrama]

Though this is just a workaround, I was able to avoid this kind of error when set default = {}.

e.g.

variable "somemap" {
  type = "map"
  default = {}
}

I comfirmed it in ver 0.7.0 and 0.7.1

[brikis98]

Just hit the same issue with Terraform 0.7.2 trying to pass an empty map from the command-line. The Terraform template:

variable "foo" {
  type = "map"
}

Trying to set the variable from the command-line:

terraform apply -var 'foo = {}'

This caused the error:

* variable foo should be type map, got list

@lamanotrama's workaround helped:

variable "foo" {
  type = "map"
  default = {}
}

[jamtur01]

Hi - just wondering if there's plans to work on this - if not - I'd be happy (and would suggest) a docs update - because this is very counter-intuitive. :)

[ghost]

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