Enable Human-Readable Resource Lookups in OCI Terraform Data Sources

[prashantkalkar]

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Description

Currently, the OCI Terraform provider’s data sources primarily require the use of OCIDs to lookup resources, which can make Terraform configurations less readable and more error-prone. This feature request proposes enhancing data sources to support resource lookups based on human-readable properties such as resource names. Using names (and other relevant properties) would simplify configuration, improve clarity, and reduce mistakes that can arise when managing long and complex OCIDs.

Enhancements could include:

• Allowing users to specify resource names (e.g., for VCNs, subnets, etc.) instead of only OCIDs.
• Supporting additional human-readable attributes to uniquely identify resources.
• Improving error messages and documentation when a lookup based on these properties fails.

New or Affected Resource(s)

• Data sources such as:
  • oci_core_vcn
  • oci_core_subnet
  • Other OCI data sources where resource lookups are performed using OCIDs

Potential Terraform Configuration

data "oci_core_vcn" "example" {
  name = "my_vcn_name"
  # Optionally, additional parameters may be added for disambiguation
}

data "oci_core_subnet" "example" {
  vcn_name = "my_vcn_name"  # Lookup VCN by name instead of OCID
  name     = "my_subnet_name"
  # Additional parameters may be required to ensure a unique match
}

References