github.com/iaas-resource-provision/iaas-rpc@v1.0.7-0.20211021023331-ed21f798c408/website/docs/language/expressions/operators.html.md (about) 1 --- 2 layout: "language" 3 page_title: "Operators - Configuration Language" 4 --- 5 6 # Arithmetic and Logical Operators 7 8 An _operator_ is a type of expression that transforms or combines one or more 9 other expressions. Operators either combine two values in some way to 10 produce a third result value, or transform a single given value to 11 produce a single result. 12 13 Operators that work on two values place an operator symbol between the two 14 values, similar to mathematical notation: `1 + 2`. Operators that work on 15 only one value place an operator symbol before that value, like 16 `!true`. 17 18 The Terraform language has a set of operators for both arithmetic and logic, 19 which are similar to operators in programming languages such as JavaScript 20 or Ruby. 21 22 When multiple operators are used together in an expression, they are evaluated 23 in the following order of operations: 24 25 1. `!`, `-` (multiplication by `-1`) 26 1. `*`, `/`, `%` 27 1. `+`, `-` (subtraction) 28 1. `>`, `>=`, `<`, `<=` 29 1. `==`, `!=` 30 1. `&&` 31 1. `||` 32 33 Use parentheses to override the default order of operations. Without 34 parentheses, higher levels will be evaluated first, so Terraform will interpret 35 `1 + 2 * 3` as `1 + (2 * 3)` and _not_ as `(1 + 2) * 3`. 36 37 The different operators can be gathered into a few different groups with 38 similar behavior, as described below. Each group of operators expects its 39 given values to be of a particular type. Terraform will attempt to convert 40 values to the required type automatically, or will produce an error message 41 if automatic conversion is impossible. 42 43 ## Arithmetic Operators 44 45 The arithmetic operators all expect number values and produce number values 46 as results: 47 48 * `a + b` returns the result of adding `a` and `b` together. 49 * `a - b` returns the result of subtracting `b` from `a`. 50 * `a * b` returns the result of multiplying `a` and `b`. 51 * `a / b` returns the result of dividing `a` by `b`. 52 * `a % b` returns the remainder of dividing `a` by `b`. This operator is 53 generally useful only when used with whole numbers. 54 * `-a` returns the result of multiplying `a` by `-1`. 55 56 Terraform supports some other less-common numeric operations as 57 [functions](function-calls.html). For example, you can calculate exponents 58 using 59 [the `pow` function](/docs/language/functions/pow.html). 60 61 ## Equality Operators 62 63 The equality operators both take two values of any type and produce boolean 64 values as results. 65 66 * `a == b` returns `true` if `a` and `b` both have the same type and the same 67 value, or `false` otherwise. 68 * `a != b` is the opposite of `a == b`. 69 70 Because the equality operators require both arguments to be of exactly the 71 same type in order to decide equality, we recommend using these operators only 72 with values of primitive types or using explicit type conversion functions 73 to indicate which type you are intending to use for comparison. 74 75 Comparisons between structural types may produce surprising results if you 76 are not sure about the types of each of the arguments. For example, 77 `var.list == []` may seem like it would return `true` if `var.list` were an 78 empty list, but `[]` actually builds a value of type `tuple([])` and so the 79 two values can never match. In this situation it's often clearer to write 80 `length(var.list) == 0` instead. 81 82 ## Comparison Operators 83 84 The comparison operators all expect number values and produce boolean values 85 as results. 86 87 * `a < b` returns `true` if `a` is less than `b`, or `false` otherwise. 88 * `a <= b` returns `true` if `a` is less than or equal to `b`, or `false` 89 otherwise. 90 * `a > b` returns `true` if `a` is greater than `b`, or `false` otherwise. 91 * `a >= b` returns `true` if `a` is greater than or equal to `b`, or `false` otherwise. 92 93 ## Logical Operators 94 95 The logical operators all expect bool values and produce bool values as results. 96 97 * `a || b` returns `true` if either `a` or `b` is `true`, or `false` if both are `false`. 98 * `a && b` returns `true` if both `a` and `b` are `true`, or `false` if either one is `false`. 99 * `!a` returns `true` if `a` is `false`, and `false` if `a` is `true`. 100 101 Terraform does not have an operator for the "exclusive OR" operation. If you 102 know that both operators are boolean values then exclusive OR is equivalent 103 to the `!=` ("not equal") operator.