Documentation for special flag unclear

[emichellecarter]

Terraform CLI and Provider Versions

3.4.3

Terraform Configuration

resource "random_password" "password" {
  length           = 16
  special          = false
  min_lower        = 2
  min_numeric      = 2
  min_special      = 2
  min_upper        = 2
  numeric          = true
  upper            = true
  lower            = true
}

Expected Behavior

The special attribute should override or throw an error when set to false and the min_special attribute is set to a non null value.
or The documentation should be clear that the special attribute is overridden by the min_special attribute.

Actual Behavior

This results in a password with 2 special characters even though special is set to false.

Steps to Reproduce

1. terraform apply

How much impact is this issue causing?

Low

Logs

No response

Additional Information

I was able to write around this issue by using checks within the module but felt this was worth reporting as it is confusing.

Code of Conduct

• [X] I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[bflad]

Hi @mcarter106 👋 Thank you for raising this, very understandable that this behavior is likely confusing right now. The resource's preference should likely be to respect the special = false configuration over anything specified by min_special.

As a followup to fixing that particular behavior, it may make sense for the resource to raise a validation warning if min_special is declared at the same time as special = false, to ensure maintainers of the resource configuration understand what is valid, however that would potentially make modular configurations a little harder to not show the potential validation warning:

resource "random_pet" "example" {
  # ...
  special     = var.make_special ? true : false
  min_special = var.make_special ? 2 : null
}

[emichellecarter]

This was the work around we used in our code. I just wanted to surface the issue so that maybe the documentation could make this a little more clear for the next developer. Thank you

From: Brian Flad @.> Sent: Monday, September 19, 2022 8:56 AM To: hashicorp/terraform-provider-random @.> Cc: Michelle Carter @.>; Mention @.> Subject: Re: [hashicorp/terraform-provider-random] Documentation for special flag unclear (Issue #323)

Hi @mcarter106https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fmcarter106&data=05%7C01%7Cmiccarter%40microsoft.com%7Cf3e87aae59ed43fe452508da9a46a5cd%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C637991925475981495%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=fRa4r2RY4nFuViTfTYLS%2BGOAS%2Fe5Hu1LwWmxdXgAG60%3D&reserved=0 👋 Thank you for raising this, very understandable that this behavior is likely confusing right now. The resource's preference should likely be to respect the special = false configuration over anything specified by min_special.

As a followup to fixing that particular behavior, it may make sense for the resource to raise a validation warning if min_special is declared at the same time as special = false, to ensure maintainers of the resource configuration understand what is valid, however that would potentially make modular configurations a little harder to not show the potential validation warning:

resource "random_pet" "example" {

...

special = var.make_special ? true : false

min_special = var.make_special ? 2 : null

}

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