Feature: Sort Variables

[sblack4]

My friends and I have been trying to standardize our terraform modules. One of the things we've started to do is sorting everything, particularly variables, alphabetically. I think this would make a great pre-commit hook.

There's a feature request out there for it hashicorp/terraform#12959 and I've got a script to do this I stole from that thread. I've never written my own pre-commit hook but I'd love to take on something simple like this to get a better idea of how the pre-commit hooks work

[MaxymVlasov]

Hi @sblack4
You can start from CONTRIBUTING.md guide and check the pre-commit.com website.

Feel free to ask any questions - it also helps me write a better contribution doc (#216)

[yermulnik]

If someone has a will to implement this feature request as a pre-commit hook, here's what I came up with using awk only: hashicorp/terraform#12959 (comment)

Quoting here for convenience:

I came up achieving the goal of sorting variables.tf with a simple awk script (which for most of the cases eliminates the need of external (non-base) deps like python, hcltool, et alia):
https://gist.github.com/yermulnik/7e0cf991962680d406692e1db1b551e6
Since this was more of an exercise out of curiosity, it was tested with GNU Awk 5.0.1, API: 2.0 (GNU MPFR 4.0.2, GNU MP 6.2.0) only, which I've got installed by default as /bin/awk on my Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS.
Works for files with variable definitions only.
Usage: cat variables.tf | awk -f tf_vars_sort.awk | tee sorted_variables.tf
Hope this helps someone 😉

[antonbabenko]

@yermulnik Nice solution! We have just removed awk magic from terraform_docs hook which was necessary a long time ago. I remember how painful it was to maintain it and fix weird cases in the past.

I am not sure we really need to bring such a solution here because it will require maintenance (new arguments, new blocks can be added in variable blocks).

[yermulnik]

JFYI: I've just extended the script to handle also some other general types of TF resources (not only variable's!) — please let me know if you find anything which would better be improved. Thanks.

I remember how painful it was to maintain it and fix weird cases in the past.

100% agree. The only reason I created this awk script was an academic interest to create a solution which requires no external dependencies apart from those which are in base of most Linux distros (basically only GNU awk).

I am not sure we really need to bring such a solution here because it will require maintenance (new arguments, new blocks can be added in variable blocks).

Yep, I agree for 100%. And this is why I haven't gone with a hook but with a helper script as I personally never needed this.
If someone feels this can be worth of a pre-commit hook, I'd be glad to volunteer to assist in development. Otherwise I also will be glad to try and implement such functionality using any other language officially supported by pre-commit-terraform.

Hope feature requester would be interested to get it done if this is worth of implementation for any occasional use case.

[yermulnik]

because it will require maintenance (new arguments, new blocks can be added in variable blocks).

Hopefully this should work w/o issues for any general-purpose TF resource blocks despite adding new arguments or nested blocks to them.

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