terraform -fmt --recursive not doing anything / not working

Question

I use tfswitch to use different terraform versions. And I am trying this in my VSCode

When running terraform fmt --recursive none of my terraform files are actually getting formatted.

For example, some code in terraform version v0.11

environment             = "${var.environment}"
project_name            = "${var.project_name}"

running a terraform fmt with version 0.12 should change this to:

 environment             = var.environment
 project_name            = var.project_name

But nothing happens when i run it.

I have to get other people to checkout my code and run it for me which isn't ideal in the long run.

Is this an issue with tfswitch, or something wrong with my terraform? It used to work and only started noticing this problem a couple weeks ago and not sure what has changed since then. I tried reinstalling tfswitch to see if that fixed anything but no luck

Answer 1

The auto-correction of HCL1 to HCL2 based DSL for Terraform with terraform fmt was implemented in 0.14. Therefore, you will not see those changes with your Terraform 0.12.

I have tested with 0.12, 0.13, and 0.14 to verify, but more to the point we see in the CHANGELOG this was introduced in 0.14.0. Note the item:

terraform fmt: Will now do some slightly more opinionated normalization behaviors, using the documented idiomatic syntax.

Note also the associated PR implementing this for 0.14. If "other people" are observing this behavior with terraform fmt, then they are using Terraform 0.14 or later.

Answer 2

Use the fmt command with the -recursive flag

terraform fmt -recursive