How to interpolate expressions in Terraform? - terraform

Question

I'm trying to use the keys expression in Terraform to grab a list of keys (from a map variable) and assign it to a local variable. Here is the code snippet:
locals {
project_name_list = keys(${var.project_map})
}
However, I'm getting the following error:
Unknown token: 29:22 IDENT keys
Am I missing something here. Nowhere can I find an example of this expression. As bad as it is, even the official documentation does not help -https://www.terraform.io/docs/configuration/functions/keys.html
HashiCorp has really done a bad job of elaborating the nuances of Terraform for beginners on their website.

Answer 1

Terraform functions need to be wrapped in expression syntax to show that it's not a literal value: "${}"
So try this: project_name_list = "${keys(var.project_map)}"
The example in the documentation is written as though being run from the terraform command line, which already assumes the command is a HCL expression and doesn't require that syntax.
UPDATE
I said above that the expression syntax is to show that it's not a literal value. It's probably more accurate to speak of it as expression syntax vs. configuration syntax. Configuration syntax is the first level of interpolation, which forms the basic structure of your terraform file with resource blocks, data blocks, etc. The second interpolation level is expression syntax which is used to generate values used by your configuration.
Thinking of it in these terms makes better sense of the error message, Unknown token, because terraform is attempting to read it as a configuration key word.
I had compared it to a literal value because it's in the same position as where a literal value would be.