Closed mirogta closed 5 years ago
Hi @mirogta! Thanks for this feature request, and your detailed use-case.
This is definitely a request that has come up before, though it seems like it's only previously been discussed within the comments of other issues, so this issue seems like a good anchor for talking about our plans here, and updating as we make progress.
The current design sketch we have is a new for_each
argument that can be used as an alternative to count
, taking either a list or a map as its value:
# NOT YET IMPLEMENTED; some details may change before implementation
resource "azurerm_network_security_rule" "allow-in" {
for_each = "${local.rules}"
name = "allow-${each.key}-in"
direction = "Inbound"
access = "Allow"
priority = "${each.value.priority}"
protocol = "${lookup(each.value, "protocol", "*")}"
source_port_range = "*"
destination_port_range = "${lookup(each.value, "destination_port", "*")}"
source_address_prefix = "${lookup(each.value, "source_address", "*")}"
destination_address_prefix = "${lookup(each.value, "destination_address", "*")}"
resource_group_name = "${azurerm_resource_group.resource_group.name}"
network_security_group_name = "${azurerm_network_security_group.nsg.name}"
}
The primary benefit of this, as you correctly suggested, is that if the for_each
collection is a map then we will use the map keys to correlate configuration instances with state instances when planning updates, and thus avoid the problem you've encountered with adding or removing items in the map.
If a user provides a list to for_each
then it'll behave in the same way as count
-- correlating by index -- but will still provide the more convenient each.key
and each.value
accessors to interpolate from the collection elements, reducing the visual noise of all the element(..., count.index)
expressions that result when multiplying a resource using count
over the length of a list.
We are currently focused on some more general work to improve the configuration language's handling of collection types, which is a pre-requisite for this for_each
feature. After that, we'll start designing and prototyping this feature in more detail.
I'm going to update the summary of this issue so that it's more specific about our currently-planned approach, since that should help us find it again to post updates when we have them.
Thanks again for this feature request!
@apparentlymart: For the sake of readability - could this be implemented as a block directive instead?
Per following example:
target_groups = {
"http" = {
port = 80
description = "HTTP port"
}
"https" = {
port = 443
description = "HTTPS port"
}
}
resource "aws_lb_target_group" "example" {
name = "example-${it.key}"
port = "${it.values["port"]}"
...
iterator {
on "${var.target_groups}"
}
}
or with list as input:
repositories = [ "repoA", "repoB"]
resource "aws_ecr_repository" "myrepos" {
name = "${it.value}"
iterator {
on "${var.repositories}""
}
}
Where Ideally, current position in loop should be exposed to user via${it.key}
could be list index in this case.${it.index}
too.
Hi @slawekm,
Unfortunately HCL syntax doesn't work quite like that, so your nested on
argument would need to include an equals sign:
iterator {
on = "${var.repositories}""
}
Given that we expect for_each
to become the main case, and count
be more of an edge-case, we chose a count
-like terse syntax here so that this usage would not create too much "visual noise" in configurations.
In practice today lots of users have the pattern of specifying the count
attribute first and separating it from the others by a blank line so it stands out more from the other "normal" attributes, and so I'd expected that in practice people would use a similar pattern with for_each
(even though I didn't illustrate that in my example above due to adapting the example in the original issue comment):
# NOT YET IMPLEMENTED; some details may change before implementation
resource "azurerm_network_security_rule" "allow-in" {
for_each = local.rules
name = "allow-${each.key}-in"
direction = "Inbound"
access = "Allow"
priority = each.value.priority
protocol = lookup(each.value, "protocol", "*")
source_port_range = "*"
destination_port_range = lookup(each.value, "destination_port", "*")
source_address_prefix = lookup(each.value, "source_address", "*")
destination_address_prefix = lookup(each.value, "destination_address", "*")
resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.resource_group.name
network_security_group_name = azurerm_network_security_group.nsg.name
}
The above also illustrates a capability of the new configuration parser where it's no longer required to use "${
and }"
to delimit standalone expressions, since expressions can now be specified directly.
Our current configuration work will also include an overhaul of the configuration-related documentation on the website that should include more "opinionated" best-practices than are currently given (since most of the documentation was written before best-practices emerged) and so we can explicitly recommend the above usage and make sure all of our examples follow it.
Hi @apparentlymart
First of all, thanks for a detailed response.
on argument would need to include an equals sign
A product of c&p typo, my bad.
Given that we expect for_each to become the main case, and count be more of an edge-case, we chose a count-like terse syntax here so that this usage would not create too much "visual noise" in configurations.
Right.
Erm, I guess the main reason I've asked for this is that I'm subconsciously looking for a simpler way to define dynamic resources.
A configurable iterator which could also perform basic operations on input data, such like grouping or filtering on values and for_each
looked like a good opportunity to create a foundation block for this.
This would make "feeding" dictionaries into resource
blocks much easier.
And with that in mind, turning for_each
into block probably would make more sense to you. Sorry for not being clear enough.
Hi @slawekm,
Thanks for the additional information about your use-case.
The new configuration language interpreter has a feature called "for
expressions" that I think will meet your use-case here. For example:
# Not yet implemented and may change before release
for_each = {
for x in aws_subnet.main:
x.id => x # Use subnet id as each.key
if x.tags["Access"] == "public"
}
This for
construct can be used anywhere a map or list is expected, and can iterate over lists and maps.
Whoa, I'd love to see this. Very exciting
Definitely exciting. Has any progress been made on the new config language interpreter that includes for_each
?
Really hope this happens soon. To get around this type of problem, I've resorted to templating the .tf files using jinja to create individual resources rather than use count
. Here's the general idea, https://github.com/Crapworks/terratools/tree/master/terratemplate
Will the for_each
attribute be available for use in modules too?
Is there any indication of when these will be rolled out?
I had the same requirements for the NSG's and used this solution which lets me change ports as the rules are grouped and delete all previous rules with an update. This is just an example.
{
"output": {
"22-80-8080-443_all": {
"description": "inbound_allow_SRC:*_Dest:*_Ports:22,80,8080,443",
"value":"22_inbound_allow_tcp_*_*,80_inbound_allow_tcp_*_*,8080_inbound_allow_tcp_*_*,443_inbound_allow_tcp_*_*"
},
"443_all": {
"description": "inbound_allow_SRC:*_Dest:*_Ports:443",
"value":"443_inbound_allow_tcp_*_*"
},
"3389-22_wirelesetwork": {
"description": "inbound_allow_SRC:63.200.10.5_Dest:*_Ports:3389,22",
"value":"3389_inbound_allow_tcp_63.200.10.5_*,22_inbound_allow_tcp_63.200.10.5_*"
},
"3389-22_wirelesetwork_jumpbox1": {
"description": "inbound_allow_SRC:63.200.10.5_Dest:10.1.0.1_Ports:3389,22",
"value":"3389_inbound_allow_tcp_63.200.10.5_10.1.0.1,22_inbound_allow_tcp_63.200.10.5_10.1.0.1"
}
}
}
module "nsg_rules" {
source = "./core/nsg_rules" //source to global nsg rules
}
module "DomainController1" {
source = "./core/.compute"
location = "${var.location}"
resource_group_name = "${var.resource_group_name}"
vm_hostname = "${var.vm_hostname}"
custimagerecgroup = "${var.custom_imagerecgroup}"
customimage = "${module.variables.2016-datacenter-latest}"
vm_size = "${var.vm_size["medium"]}"
vnet_subnet_id = "${data.azurerm_subnet.networks.id}"
nsg_ports = "${module.variables.3389-22_wirelessnetwork}" //REFERENCE THE RULE FROM THE JSON
}
resource "azurerm_network_security_group" "vm" {
count = "${var.nsg_required == "true" ? 1 : 0}"
name = "${var.vm_hostname}-${coalesce(var.remote_port,module.os.calculated_remote_port)}-nsg"
location = "${azurerm_resource_group.vm.location}"
resource_group_name = "${azurerm_resource_group.vm.name}"
}
We then split the rules by manipulating the string values form the json.
Split by comma for count of rules
"22_inbound_allowtcp_ 80_inbound_allowtcp_ 8080_inbound_allowtcp_ 443_inbound_allowtcp_
Then split using the underscores in order for port, direction, action, protocol, source and destination note in the code below we have a * to accept from any.
resource "azurerm_network_security_rule" "vmnsg" {
count = "${length(split(",", var.nsg_ports))}"
name = "${element(split(",", var.nsg_ports), count.index)}"
priority = "10${count.index}"
direction = "${element(split(",", var.nsg_direction), count.index)}"
access = "${element(split(",", var.nsg_access), count.index)}"
protocol = "${element(split(",", var.nsg_protocol), count.index)}"
destination_port_range = "${element(split("_", element(split(",", var.nsg_ports), count.index)),0)}"
source_port_range = "*"
source_address_prefix = "${element(split("_", element(split(",", var.nsg_ports), 0)),4)}"
destination_address_prefix = "${element(split(",", var.nsg_dest_add), count.index)}"
resource_group_name = "${azurerm_resource_group.vm.name}"
network_security_group_name = "${azurerm_network_security_group.vm.name}"
}
I also think the count feature is not really the best way to achieve creation of multiple resources.
The name will always be resource[0]
, resource[1]
etc. But it would be much better to have resource[key1]
, resource[keySomething]
. I just stumbled upon this when I was creating multiple VPN tunnels for AWS. I tried it with maps and of course the keys get sorted alphabetically.
Is there any progress with the for_each
?
how would this design handle sub resources? would there be a way to create a resource conditionally? For example, would i be able to say given condition X in one iteration, skip creating this resource.
@apparentlymart , will there be migration guide/document provided from count
to for_each
? This is basically to take advantage of for_each
in existing logic where count
is used for list
and map
.
Is this currently being worked on? Is there any expected delivery date?
Looks like it's getting close, https://www.hashicorp.com/blog/terraform-0-1-2-preview
As described in the blog article on for
and for_each
, some groundwork for this has be laid in the 0.12 development work so far but this particular feature won't land until a subsequent minor release, just because we don't want to hold up releasing the other improvements in order to include this one.
We are still planning to move ahead with this for_each
design, but there is a little more internal reorganization to do within Terraform Core to get it ready to deal with all of the mechanisms we're familiar with for count
: destroying instances when their corresponding key is no longer present in the for_each
value, making the multiple instances available in expressions via their keys, etc.
@apparentlymart Is this the issue to watch for further for_each
design/implementation or are there others? I'd like to keep up with and test the functionality as it becomes available.
I was trying it out with v0.12.0-alpha2
and was hitting a few issues, I'm guessing as it's not fully implemented yet?
variable "lb_subnet_numbers" {
description = "Map from availability zone to the number that should be used for each availability zone's subnet for the LOAD BALANCER tier."
type = "map"
default = {
"a" = 0
"b" = 1
"c" = 2
}
}
resource "aws_subnet" "lb" {
for_each = var.lb_subnet_numbers
vpc_id = aws_vpc.this.id
availability_zone = "${var.aws_region}${lower(each.key)}"
cidr_block = cidrsubnet(aws_vpc.example.cidr_block, 8, each.value)
}
And the subsequent error:
λ terraform plan
Error: Incorrect value type
on C:\GIT_Workspaces\foobar\main.tf line 33, in resource "aws_subnet" "lb":
33: for_each = var.lb_subnet_numbers
Invalid expression value: number required.
Hi @jakauppila!
This feature is not part of the v0.12.0 scope but as you've seen we laid some groundwork for it in preparation for implementing it later. Funnily enough today I've been working on fixing up the error messages for these cases where we're reserving a name for later use, including that one.
This is the issue we'll post updates on as we have them. We're hoping to finish and release the for_each
feature in a subsequent point release of 0.12, rather than make the 0.12.0 release later by holding for it.
I'm having the same issue - creating a bunch of subnets in AWS, using a list, currently, but adding to / removing from the list causes subnets to be destroyed and recreated, because they are associated with the list index rather than inherent properties
I'm also having this issue with persistent disk creation when scaling out. If I try to add to the list of disks when creating a new VM, sometimes the list becomes reordered causing my old disks to be destroyed.
@timotab Can you not use a lifecycle policy for that to make it never re-issue the create/modify?
@reverendtimm not sure i follow, could you expand a bit more? not sure i understand how you would do that 😕
@eredi93 undo. I think the lifecycle on a state will actually cause it to try and create stuff that already exists. We tested it here with route53 entries, and it errors out due to it applying stuff that already exists, and not modifying the one you've added. 👍
from my experience using count
to create resources like VPC subnets, route tables associations etc. or Route53 records it will cause downtime.
when the index changes it will destroy and recreate the resource. i tried it in a test environment and it will not:
errors out due to it applying stuff that already exists
it will pull the trigger and destroy the resources. if you have a create_before_destroy
on Route53 it might fail as the ID is probably the domain but for subnets and route tables it wont be the case.
actually if you add create_before_destroy
on a route table association you will face this issue https://github.com/terraform-providers/terraform-provider-aws/issues/7245
I think the use of lists instead of a map to keep track of multiple resources is a major limitation in Terraform. Using count
It is not safe and i will not recommend to use it in a production environment.
I hope @apparentlymart , @jbardin or @mildwonkey will get the time to work on this as soon as Terraform 0.12.0 stable is out. We currently stopped migrating resources to Terraform as we would have had to migrate them using resources and not modules. this would be extremely verbose considering the size of our infrastructure which would make it unacceptable for our engineering organisation.
@reverendtimm I would love to get hear more about your workaround but after spending a lot of time on this i don't think there is a safe way to sue count
@eredi93 you're right. We've ended up just creating lots of resources for the DNS, instead of counting. Would be good to get that resolved though.
Ditto to the previous two comments before this and especially so for:
I think the use of lists instead of a map to keep track of multiple resources is a major limitation in Terraform
The moment you introduce count in the codebase, you get in trouble.
I wonder whether instead of having count creating a list but creating a map of resource id + name (?) + number as key would solve the "sliding windows" problem, if you see what I mean.
@apparentlymart Just wanted to ask since I saw it out there; is this feature planned for the v0.12.1 milestone or a later one?
The Terraform team only plans one release at a time, so anything that is not planned for v0.12.0 has no offical plan at all. (The v0.12.1 milestone is, in practice, representing just "after v0.12.0" for the moment, until the v0.12.1 release is actually planned.)
However, with that said we expect that this for_each
feature can arrive in some v0.12.x release because all of the foundational work to support it (which required breaking changes to state/plan file formats, etc) have been completed already for the v0.12.0 initial release, so no further breaking changes should be required to complete it.
Damn, so it's not possible yet! I downloaded the 0.12 beta all excited and got a nice "reserved for future use" message.
I was looking for it in order to push gsuite's mx records for every gsuite domain owned, in a very compact way. Something like this should end up being possible, right?
variable "gsuite_mx_records" {
default = [
{ address = "ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.", priority = 1 },
{ address = "ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.", priority = 5 },
{ address = "ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.", priority = 5 },
{ address = "ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.", priority = 10 },
{ address = "ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.", priority = 10 },
]
}
resource "cloudflare_record" "mx-records" {
for_each = var.gsuite_mx_records
domain = "example.com"
name = "example.com"
type = "MX"
value = each.address
priority = each.priority
proxied = false
}
One thing I was wondering, for this feature (for each resources) ... would it be possible to have them dynamically named? E.g.
cnames = [
{ "www" = {"value": "www...", "name": "www-record" ...}, ...
]
resource "cloudflare_record" "cname-${each.key}" {
for_each = var.cnames
name = each.value.name
value = each.value.value
...
}
This would be very helpful for state management. This is because I could then delete one of the items in the list but it would only delete one record. Currently the reliance of count means that deleting anything but the last item results in a lot of change (as the items move down). Apart from being confusing, this could also result in outages where resources are replaced for no reason.
variable "gsuite_mx_records" { default = [ { address = "ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.", priority = 1 }, { address = "ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.", priority = 5 }, { address = "ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.", priority = 5 }, { address = "ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.", priority = 10 }, { address = "ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.", priority = 10 }, ] } resource "cloudflare_record" "mx-records" { for_each = var.gsuite_mx_records domain = "example.com" name = "example.com" type = "MX" value = each.address priority = each.priority proxied = false }
I only just today decided to finally convert my DNS to Terraform and this is exactly what I was hoping / looking to do as I have a few dozen domains. Is there any current way to go about doing something like this, even if not quite as simple as opposed to just having all 5 full independent record entries for every domain?
@MostHated something with count=length(var.gsuite_mx_records) and element(var.gsuite_mx_records, count.index) should probably do it. in this case the entries can be destroyed and recreated without problem when you change your list. And we need for_each for the case when the resources cant' be destroyed (e.g. ec2 instances).
@non7top
I appreciate the reply. Glad to hear there is at least a way. I will do some more research on that and see what I can come up with.
Thanks!
-MH
@MostHated Yes, I ended up with this:
variable gsuite_mx_records {
… // as above
}
resource "cloudflare_record" "example_com_mx" {
domain = "example.com"
name = "example.com"
type = "MX"
value = "${lookup(var.gsuite_mx_records[count.index], "address")}"
priority = "${lookup(var.gsuite_mx_records[count.index], "priority")}"
proxied = false
count = "${length(var.gsuite_mx_records)}"
}
It definitely feels less natural, hope we can get for_each soon :)
@apparentlymart So will Terraform 0.12 still have no solution for the issue described in https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform/issues/14275 (which is now closed)? That is, if you use count
to create multiple resources and delete one in the middle, all the others after it get deleted and recreated too?
I closed that other issue because it is covering the same use-case as this one. This issue now represents that, so we'll close this one once the solution is available.
@brikis98 from https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform/issues/17179#issuecomment-440358001 it seems they are hoping to finish and release the for_each
feature in a subsequent point release of 0.12
I honestly hope this will happen in the near future as count
is not safe for production use 😞
Understood. Thx @apparentlymart and @eredi93.
According to Upgrading to Terraform v0.12 it's implemented. My colleague tried for_each with v0.12.0-rc1 and found it working. Or I missed something?
I'm not sure what part of the upgrade guide you are referring to, but I suspect you're thinking of dynamic
blocks, which are not the same thing as resource-level for_each
even though they also use an argument named for_each
.
dynamic
blocks allow dynamic creation of nested blocks within resources. This issue is about using for_each
on the resource itself, as a replacement for count
.
The reason these things are different is that blocks within a resource
block (aside from the meta-arguments) are just a normal part of the resource's object representation and so the dynamic
block just behaves as a sort of macro, as if you had manually written out several blocks. Resource-level for_each
must integrate with Terraform's built-in resource addressing, so it behaves slightly differently.
For example, if you were to write the following:
locals {
things = {
foo = bar
baz = boop
}
}
resource "null_resource" "example" {
for_each = local.things
triggers = {
key = each.key
value = each.value
}
}
...Terraform would see this as declaring two resource instances with the following addresses:
null_resource.example["foo"]
null_resource.example["baz"]
This is not the same as what would've happened if you just wrote two separate resource
blocks, since in that case they would've been required to have distinct names. It's also different than using count
, because the instance keys are the strings "foo"
and "baz"
, rather than numeric indices 0, 1. This is the important detail that makes this better than count
: Terraform will then correlate the indices by these string keys rather than by their positions in a sequence, so no particular ordering is implied or assumed.
What we did for Terraform 0.12 is prepared Terraform's internal models and file formats to support instance keys being strings. The remaining work is to change the current "expand" logic that handles count
to also deal with for_each
, and to track the expression result so that each.key
and each.value
will return suitable results inside those blocks.
I see now. Thanks!
I understand there is not ETA or preview code i can compile to test/use in the meantime.
I'd be really interested on a very rough estimate for for_each on maps , im making some place holders in my design and it would be handy to know when this amazing feature will come along. in the meantime i guess terraform state mv will save the day in case of a deletion of a list element which isn't the last one.
version: Terraform v0.12.1
main.tf
data "template_file" "userdata" {
template = file("../../user_data.tpl")
}
locals {
hosts = {
test1 = "one",
test2 = "two"
}
}
resource "digitalocean_droplet" "this" {
for_each = locals.hosts
image = var.image
name = each.key
region = var.region
size = var.size
private_networking = var.private_networking
user_data = data.template_file.userdata.rendered
lifecycle {
ignore_changes = ["user_data", "ssh_keys", "image"]
}
tags = concat(var.tags, list(digitalocean_tag.this.id))
depends_on = ["digitalocean_tag.this"]
}
resource "digitalocean_tag" "this" {
name = format("%s-%s", var.service, var.environment)
}
terraform init, and report the following error:
Error: Reserved argument name in resource block
on ./main.tf line 13, in resource "digitalocean_droplet" "this":
13: for_each = locals.hosts
The name "for_each" is reserved for use in a future version of Terraform.
is not it support this now ?
would love to see this implemented as well.
I like to use something like this for conditionally creating resources based on the value in a map thats part of a list (list of maps?).
variable "api_apps" {
type = list(
object({
api_name = string
api_swagger_definition_file = string
api_endpoint_type = string
api_stage_variables = map(string)
lambda_handler = string
lambda_runtime = string
lambda_func_name = string
lambda_deploy_package = string
lambda_src_dir = string
deploy_package_cc_option = string
endpoint_version = number
}))
description = "A list of objects that represent the properties of the configuration items and values for each Rest API"
}
api_apps = [
{
api_name = "TestAPI",
api_swagger_definition_file = "./examples/files/swagger-definition.yaml",
api_endpoint_type = "PRIVATE", # EDGE, REGIONAL, PRIVATE
api_stage_variables = { answer = 42, things = "stuff" },
lambda_handler = "main.handler",
lambda_runtime = "nodejs8.10",
lambda_func_name = "ServerlessExample",
lambda_deploy_package = "examples/example.zip",
lambda_src_dir = "examples/src",
deploy_package_cc_option = "max-age=604800, public",
endpoint_version = 1,
},
{
api_name = "SampleAPI",
api_swagger_definition_file = "./examples/files/swagger-definition-sample.yaml",
api_endpoint_type = "REGIONAL", # EDGE, REGIONAL, PRIVATE
api_stage_variables = { answer = 25, rather = "six to four" },
lambda_handler = "main.handler",
lambda_runtime = "nodejs8.10",
lambda_func_name = "ServerlessSample",
lambda_deploy_package = "examples/sample.zip",
lambda_src_dir = "examples/src",
deploy_package_cc_option = "max-age=604800, public",
endpoint_version = 1,
},
]
data "aws_iam_policy_document" "private_api_policy" {
count = # check if any of the values of property of var.api_apps.api_endpoint_type == "PRIVATE" ? 1 : 0
... rest of resource properties
}
Forgive me if this has already been discussed previously, as I couldn't find a reference to it anywhere, but is there any plan to address the resource name within a for_each resource definition? With the current practice of using count
the names are appended with their prefix within the loop.
In some cases this is fine behavior, but when referencing a resource that is generated from a loop it would be more accurate if we could also control the names of these resources.
We look for exact same feature as @bostrowski13 posted above
So, now that we're a few minor releases into 0.12 I don't suppose there's any indication as to how far away this feature is? It's currently a blocker on how I'd like to set Terraform up and I'd like to know whether it's worth continuing to wait on this or start looking into other options...
I had assumed that a) this feature would have made it in to 0.12 release, and b) that the original pseudo-code (where the loop is outside the resource itself) was the way this was going to go, and that c) the templating features would allow using templating to create resources within the language (vs. using something like jinja to define tf resources).
Especially after such a long wait, the way some of these features are implemented in practice is definitely not ideal, IMHO, but just want to confirm... when this feature is eventually released, will there be a way to have the created resources named based on a list / map attribute?
In terms of actual pain this causes, we do a lot of things like, say, pass a list of roles to a module, and then create those roles. When the roles are indexed by [0]
, [1]
, etc., not only are the names of the resources meaningless (module.foo-gke-cluster.google_project_iam_member.project[3]
), but the index slices get shuffled causing resources to get destroyed / re-created if the list order gets shuffled. Or, say we want a module to create resources based on a data structure, same sort of problem comes up.
Hi,
We are missing a better support for loops which would be based on keys, not on indexes.
Below is an example of the problem we currently have and would like Terraform to address:
We have a list of Azure NSG (Network Security Group) rules defined in a hash. E.g.
This allows us to keep the Terraform resource definition DRY and use a loop to create all the rules:
So far, so good. However since the resources and their state are uniquely identified by the index and not by their name, we can't simply change the rules later.
As you can guess, if we e.g. remove the first item from the hash, Terraform would not see that as a removal of the first resource (index 0), but rather removal of the last resource (index 2) and a related unexpected change of all the other resources (old index 1 becomes new index 0, old index 2 becomes new index 1).
Unfortunately this can also cause Azure provider to fail, because it may get into a conflict where an actual resource (old index 1) still exists in Azure, but Terraform now tries to modify the actual resource (old index 0) to have the same properties, but that is not possible (e.g. NSG priority and port have to be unique).
I've shown an example with 3 rules, but in reality we can have 50 rules and the tf file is 5x longer and more difficult to manage with individual resources compared to using a hash.
We would like to use hashes in Terraform in such a way that a position of an element inside a hash doesn't matter. That's why many other languages provide two ways of looping - by index (e.g.
for i=0; i<list.length;i++
) and by key (foreach key in list
).I'm sure that smart guys like you can figure out how to make this work in Terraform.
Thanks