[Bug]: Permanent diff for `aws_ecs_task_definition` with null/empty values in environment variables

[flostadler]

Terraform Core Version

1.5.7

AWS Provider Version

5.69.0

Affected Resource(s)

• aws_ecs_task_definition

Expected Behavior

When setting setting environment variables in aws_ecs_task_definition to null or the empty value AWS seems to filter out those environment variables when creating the Task Definition.

Running apply or preview should not detect changes if the aws_ecs_task_definition was not modified.

Actual Behavior

aws_ecs_task_definition permanently shows a diff when setting environment variables to null or the empty value.

Relevant Error/Panic Output Snippet

No response

Terraform Configuration Files

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-west-2"
}

resource "aws_ecs_task_definition" "example_task_definition" {
  family                = "example-service"
  container_definitions = jsonencode([
    {
      name      = "example-service"
      image     = "nginx"
      memory    = 128
      environment = [
        {
          name  = "EXAMPLE_VARIABLE"
          value = "" # Also happens for nulls
        }
      ]
    }
  ])
}

Steps to Reproduce

• terraform apply
• terraform preview and observe the diff

Debug Output

No response

Panic Output

No response

Important Factoids

No response

References

This could be fixed by filtering out nulls/empty values in the environment variables. The same is already done for the ecs_properties parameter of aws_batch_job_definition: https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-provider-aws/blame/ad3a8be1c171039ddec00dd87d5e4e2ae8497519/internal/service/batch/ecs_properties.go#L84-L86

Would you like to implement a fix?

None

[github-actions[bot]]

Community Note

Voting for Prioritization

• Please vote on this issue by adding a 👍 reaction to the original post to help the community and maintainers prioritize this request.
• Please see our prioritization guide for information on how we prioritize.
• Please do not leave "+1" or other comments that do not add relevant new information or questions, they generate extra noise for issue followers and do not help prioritize the request.

Volunteering to Work on This Issue

• If you are interested in working on this issue, please leave a comment.
• If this would be your first contribution, please review the contribution guide.