Terraform: v0.14.0-rc1 regression: Incorrectly rendered newlines in terraform output

[aaronsteers]

Identified regression in 0.14.0-rc: multi-line output is incorrectly rendered (rendered without newline characters).

Terraform Version

Terraform v0.14.0-rc1

• provider registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/archive v2.0.0
• provider registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/aws v3.17.0
• provider registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/http v2.0.0
• provider registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/local v2.0.0
• provider registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/null v3.0.0
• provider registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/random v3.0.0

Terraform Configuration Files

output "my_out" {
  value = <<EOF
This is a
multiline
string.
EOF
}

Expected Behavior

Expected behavior is that the output is rendered with newline characters. This is especially important for longer strings and strings which pass URLs as part of a pre-formatted output string.

This is the output from 0.12.x and 0.13.x:

my_out = This is a
multiline
string.

Actual Behavior

Output does not render newlines but mashes multiple lines together. This breaks links and makes longer output strings unreadable to the user.

my_out = This is a\nmultiline\nstring.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create output variable with multiple lines.
2. Run terraform apply or terraform output

Additional Context

This is especially important for modules which pass usability info (esp. links and other info) on to consumer of the module.

• Also referenced/documented here: https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/terraform-v0-14-0-rc1-released/15752/15?u=aaronsteers1

[alisdair]

Thanks for reporting this, @aaronsteers. I've confirmed the issue in Terraform 0.14.0-rc1.

This change is a consequence of the change in console and output rendering, which aimed to ensure that these values were presented as valid HCL values. The fix will require rendering strings containing newlines in the heredoc format.

[alisdair]

There's a fix pending review in #27045. With that branch, the original reproduction case here renders as follows:

$ terraform apply -auto-approve

Apply complete! Resources: 0 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.

Outputs:

my_out = <<EOT
This is a
multiline
string.

EOT

[hashibot[bot]]

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