Documentation for variable types talks about "keyword any", but any is not a valid type.

[johnson-earls]

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Overview of the Issue

I need to accept a variable that can contain any object, not an object with specific fields. By reading the following documentation in https://developer.hashicorp.com/packer/docs/templates/hcl_templates/variables#type-constraints …

The keyword any may be used to indicate that any type is acceptable.

I expected that I could use either type = any or type = object(any). Neither is accepted by the parser.

If any is not a valid keyword, then it should not be in the documentation as a valid keyword.

Reproduction Steps

variable "foo" {
    type = any
    default = {}
}

or

variable "foo" {
    type = object(any)
    default = {}
}

Packer version

1.9.4

Simplified Packer Template

template 1:

variable "foo" {
  type = any
  default = {}
}

template 2:

variable "foo" {
  type = object(any)
  default = {}
}

Operating system and Environment details

$ uname -a
Linux turbinevm-builder 4.18.0-448.el8.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed Jan 18 15:02:46 UTC 2023 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
$ cat /etc/os-release
NAME="CentOS Stream"
VERSION="8"
ID="centos"
ID_LIKE="rhel fedora"
VERSION_ID="8"
PLATFORM_ID="platform:el8"
PRETTY_NAME="CentOS Stream 8"
ANSI_COLOR="0;31"
CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:centos:centos:8"
HOME_URL="https://centos.org/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/"
REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT="Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8"
REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION="CentOS Stream"

Log Fragments and crash.log files

for template 1:

$ packer init t.pkr.hcl
Error: Invalid type specification

  on t.pkr.hcl line 2, in variable "foo":
   2:   type = any

The keyword "any" cannot be used in this type specification: an exact type is
required.

for template 2:

$ packer init t2.pkr.hcl
Error: Invalid type specification

  on t2.pkr.hcl line 2, in variable "foo":
   2:   type = object(any)

Object type constructor requires a map whose keys are attribute names and whose
values are the corresponding attribute types.