> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://developer.harness.io/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://developer.harness.io/continuous-delivery/troubleshooting-and-resources/armory/general/spel-expression-failure-interpreting-with-terraform-templates.md).

# SpEL expression failure interpreting dollar sign bracket with Terraform Templates

### Issue <a href="#issue" id="issue"></a>

A SpEL expression failure appears while using Terraformer to serialize data from a `Terraform Plan` execution. The execution creates a `JSON object` instead of to a `JSON string`.The customer pipeline does the following:

* In the Terraformer Stage, a Terraform Plan outputs a binary object as a Spinnaker Artifact.
* Terraform shows passing through a `plan file` which causes Terraform to output a `JSON plan file` as an `output` of the stage.The outputted `plan file` is stored as an artifact that can be used as a `tfvars object` for the next Terraformer stage.
* The command `toJson` is used to ingest the JSON object and transform it into a string. The string will be passed in via a `tfvars` object to the subsequent `Terraform Apply Stage` (with a static/defined by using a module that uploads the `tfvars var` to a bucket/object)
* Lastly, the pipeline calls `kube` to run a 3rd party API to download the object through the name passed to it.

The issue is that if the output has a ***SpEL escape*** in it `${` then it fails.

### Cause <a href="#cause" id="cause"></a>

The cause is that the `SpEL processor` in Spinnaker throws a `null` value if the SpEL expression has `${` in it, and is visible in Spinnaker's code [here](https://github.com/spinnaker/kork/blob/d895e2b820baadc0986dd4451e7b18f030a9a865/kork-expressions/src/main/java/com/netflix/spinnaker/kork/expressions/ExpressionsSupport.java#L198) Also, if the users are using an older Terraform version (< 0.12), then it is also using the template provider from Terraform.The template provider exposes data sources to use templates to generate strings for other Terraform resources or outputs.

❗️ HashiCorp has deprecated the template provider since v0.12

* The announcement is [here](https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/template/latest/docs)\* Users should use the [template file](https://www.terraform.io/language/functions/templatefile?_ga=2.68579986.223689003.1655389310-554336950.1655389310) function instead