github.com/muratcelep/terraform@v1.1.0-beta2-not-internal-4/website/docs/language/functions/coalesce.html.md (about) 1 --- 2 layout: "language" 3 page_title: "coalesce - Functions - Configuration Language" 4 sidebar_current: "docs-funcs-collection-coalesce-x" 5 description: |- 6 The coalesce function takes any number of arguments and returns the 7 first one that isn't null nor empty. 8 --- 9 10 # `coalesce` Function 11 12 `coalesce` takes any number of arguments and returns the first one 13 that isn't null or an empty string. 14 15 All of the arguments must be of the same type. Terraform will try to 16 convert mismatched arguments to the most general of the types that all 17 arguments can convert to, or return an error if the types are incompatible. 18 The result type is the same as the type of all of the arguments. 19 20 ## Examples 21 22 ``` 23 > coalesce("a", "b") 24 a 25 > coalesce("", "b") 26 b 27 > coalesce(1,2) 28 1 29 ``` 30 31 To perform the `coalesce` operation with a list of strings, use the `...` 32 symbol to expand the list as arguments: 33 34 ``` 35 > coalesce(["", "b"]...) 36 b 37 ``` 38 39 Terraform attempts to select a result type that all of the arguments can 40 convert to, so mixing argument types may produce surprising results due to 41 Terraform's automatic type conversion rules: 42 43 ``` 44 > coalesce(1, "hello") 45 "1" 46 > coalesce(true, "hello") 47 "true" 48 > coalesce({}, "hello") 49 50 Error: Error in function call 51 52 Call to function "coalesce" failed: all arguments must have the same type. 53 ``` 54 55 ## Related Functions 56 57 * [`coalescelist`](./coalescelist.html) performs a similar operation with 58 list arguments rather than individual arguments.