fmtvsvalidation.md

fmt and validate difference.

Let's take a example of ec2 creation .tf file here.

Intentionally i have rearranged the main.tf file. as you can see the format is changed.

example 1

[root@ip-172-31-24-113 output]# cat main.tf
resource "aws_instance" "terraformdemo"        {
  ami  = "ami-06e85d4c3149db26a"
           instance_type = "t2.micro"
         }

I am going to use the terraform fmt and validate command and will see the result.

For terraform validate command checked the syantx only. In this case there is no syntax error, it throws all are fine.

[root@ip-172-31-24-113 output]# terraform validate
Success! The configuration is valid.

For terraform fmt command, It shows the main.tf file. After reviewing it, the format has been structured.

[root@ip-172-31-24-113 output]# terraform fmt
main.tf
[root@ip-172-31-24-113 output]# cat main.tf
resource "aws_instance" "terraformdemo" {
  ami           = "ami-06e85d4c3149db26a"
  instance_type = "t2.micro"
}

example 2

modified the arguments name from ami to amiq.

fmt command shows there is some error in the main.tf file. However, it is not providing much information about where the error coming.

[root@ip-172-31-24-113 output]# terraform fmt
main.tf

validate command provided exactly what is the error and what terraform are looking for.All information provided in the error logs.

[root@ip-172-31-24-113 output]# terraform validate
╷
│ Error: Unsupported argument
│
│   on main.tf line 2, in resource "aws_instance" "terraformdemo":
│    2:   amiq          = "ami-06e85d4c3149db26a"
│
│ An argument named "amiq" is not expected here. Did you mean "ami"?
╵

Validation check the syntax and identied any syntax issue there or not and display with brief logs.

format check the alignment and structured the codes. also indicates issues are in specific file but not with brief details.