59 lines
2 KiB
Plaintext
59 lines
2 KiB
Plaintext
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---
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layout: docs
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page_title: can - Functions - Configuration Language
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description: |-
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The can function tries to evaluate an expression given as an argument and
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indicates whether the evaluation succeeded.
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---
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# `can` Function
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`can` evaluates the given expression and returns a boolean value indicating
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whether the expression produced a result without any errors.
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This is a special function that is able to catch errors produced when evaluating
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its argument. For most situations where you could use `can` it's better to use
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[`try`](/docs/job-specification/hcl2/functions/conversion/try) instead, because it allows for more concise definition of
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fallback values for failing expressions.
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The `can` function can only catch and handle _dynamic_ errors resulting from
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access to data that isn't known until runtime. It will not catch errors
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relating to expressions that can be proven to be invalid for any input, such
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as a malformed reference.
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~> **Warning:** The `can` function is intended only for simple tests in
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variable validation rules. Although it can technically accept any sort of
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expression and be used elsewhere in the configuration, we recommend against
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using it in other contexts. For error handling elsewhere in the configuration,
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prefer to use [`try`](/docs/job-specification/hcl2/functions/conversion/try).
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## Examples
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```shell-session
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> local.foo
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{
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"bar" = "baz"
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}
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> can(local.foo.bar)
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true
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> can(local.foo.boop)
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false
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```
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The `can` function will _not_ catch errors relating to constructs that are
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provably invalid even before dynamic expression evaluation, such as a malformed
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reference or a reference to a top-level object that has not been declared:
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```shell-session
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> can(local.nonexist)
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Error: Reference to undeclared local value
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A local value with the name "nonexist" has not been declared.
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```
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## Related Functions
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- [`try`](/docs/job-specification/hcl2/functions/conversion/try), which tries evaluating a sequence of expressions and
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returns the result of the first one that succeeds.
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