title: How can I convert a list to a string in Terraform?
body: <blockquote>
    <p><code>join</code> works BUT i want to keep the double quotes join gives me this </p>
    
    <p><code>[ben,linda,john]</code></p>
    
    <p>BUT i want this</p>
    
    <p><code>["ben", "linda", "john"]</code></p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>this is getting crazy, spent over 2 hours trying to fix this
  i want to pass in a list as a string variable
  why can't terraform just take in my list as a string? why is this so difficult?</p>
  
  <p>so i have </p>
  
  <p><code>name = ["ben", "linda", "john"]</code></p>
  
  <p>and i want to pass this to variable used in terrform</p>
  
  <p><code>var.name</code></p>
  
  <p>why can't terrform take this as is?</p>
  
  <p>i get the error saying epxtected a string and i can not find a solution online after sarching everywhere</p>
  
  <p>i have been able to get </p>
  
  <p><code>[ ben,linda,john ]</code> using <code>join(",", var.name)</code> but i want <code>["ben", "linda", "john"]</code></p>
  
  <pre><code>$ terraform --version
  Terraform v0.12.18
  + provider.aws v2.42.0
  + provider.template v2.1.2
  </code></pre>