var-file argument gives invalid format

[noahjl]

Using terraform 0.6.3 (on Fedora 22 x64) to deploy concurrent environments to AWS using -state and -var-file arguments.

The setup uses separate file for variables (variables.tf), outputs (outputs.tf) and resources ($resource.tf).

When deploying without the -var-file argument there is no issues. If I use the -var-file=variables.tf it throws an error that I suspect is a bug or user error. Different file names (i.e. demo.tfvars, demo_variables.tf) don't seem to make a difference.

$ terraform plan -var-file=variables.tf
...
2015/09/21 10:23:42 waiting for all plugin processes to complete...
invalid value "variables.tf" for flag -var-file: Error decoding Terraform vars file: root.variable: unknown type to string: ValueTypeObject

The vars file should be in the format of `key = "value"`.
Decoding errors are usually caused by an invalid format.
Usage: terraform plan [options] [dir]

  Generates an execution plan for Terraform.
...

Please let me know if any additional info would be helpful.
Thank you
Reviewed Issues #2659, #1084 as they seemed possibly related.

[ringods]

@noahjl You can't pass a *.tf file as a var-file argument.

In Terraform, you have two file types:

• configuration: *.tf
• variables: *.tfvars.

You must first declare your variables in e.g. test.tf file:

variable "test" {}

then you can provide a value via a variables file test.tfvars:

test = "value"

and run plan or push with the var-file argument:

$ terraform plan -var-file=test.tfvars
$ terraform push -var-file=test.tfvars

[phinze]

@ringods you gave a perfect explanation here - thank you!

[mohamaa]

Awesome explanation !!! worked like a charm.
One thing to note for a new bee : -var-file doesn't work with "terraform plan" command.

[ghost]

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