53 lines
1.8 KiB
Markdown
53 lines
1.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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layout: "functions"
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page_title: "file - Functions - Configuration Language"
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sidebar_current: "docs-funcs-file-file-x"
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description: |-
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The file function reads the contents of the file at the given path and
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returns them as a string.
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---
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# `file` Function
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-> **Note:** This page is about Terraform 0.12 and later. For Terraform 0.11 and
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earlier, see
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[0.11 Configuration Language: Interpolation Syntax](../../configuration-0-11/interpolation.html).
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`file` reads the contents of a file at the given path and returns them as
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a string.
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```hcl
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file(path)
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```
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Strings in the Terraform language are sequences of Unicode characters, so
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this function will interpret the file contents as UTF-8 encoded text and
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return the resulting Unicode characters. If the file contains invalid UTF-8
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sequences then this function will produce an error.
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This function can be used only with files that already exist on disk
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at the beginning of a Terraform run. Functions do not participate in the
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dependency graph, so this function cannot be used with files that are generated
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dynamically during a Terraform operation. We do not recommend using dynamic
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local files in Terraform configurations, but in rare situations where this is
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necessary you can use
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[the `local_file` data source](/docs/providers/local/d/file.html)
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to read files while respecting resource dependencies.
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## Examples
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```
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> file("${path.module}/hello.txt")
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Hello World
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```
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## Related Functions
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* [`filebase64`](./filebase64.html) also reads the contents of a given file,
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but returns the raw bytes in that file Base64-encoded, rather than
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interpreting the contents as UTF-8 text.
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* [`fileexists`](./fileexists.html) determines whether a file exists
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at a given path.
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* [`templatefile`](./templatefile.html) renders using a file from disk as a
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template.
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