terraform, powershell,

Escape PowerShell's double quotes in Terraform

Jun 23, 2022 · 1 min read · Post a comment

To my Windows-PowerShell-Terraform-Azure users out there, I just want to share a quick nugget on how to escape the annoying double quotes.

Prerequisites

  • PowerShell
  • Terraform

Example

Let’s try to import an already existing Azure subnet to the TF state. Given the following terraform import command:

terraform import azurerm_subnet.devcoops_subnets["private-subnet-1"] /subscriptions/<subId>/resourceGroups/devcoops-rg/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/devcoops-vnet/subnets/private-subnet-1

I’ll get the following error in the console:

Error: Invalid character

  on networks.tf line 21:
   1: azurerm_subnet.devcoops_subnets[\private-subnet-1\]

This character is not used within the language.


Error: Index value required

  on networks.tf line 21:
   1: azurerm_subnet.devcoops_subnets[\private-subnet-1\]

Index brackets must contain either a literal number or a literal string.


Error: Invalid character

  on networks.tf line 21:
   1: azurerm_subnet.devcoops_subnets[\private-subnet-1\]

This character is not used within the language.

Solution

Two things to add. Wrap the whole azurerm_subnet.. part with single quotes and escape the double quotes with \ (backlash). Hence, the right command to do so:

terraform import 'azurerm_subnet.devcoops_subnets[\"private-subnet-1\"]' /subscriptions/<subId>/resourceGroups/devcoops-rg/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/devcoops-vnet/subnets/private-subnet-1

Conclusion

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