Terraform 0.11.x loop through a map and create files with content based on a maps --> key, value

example_local_file.tf

variable "object_list" {
  type = "map"
  default = {
    content1 = "this is example content 1",
    content2 = "this is example content 2"
  }
}

resource "local_file" "local_files" {
  count = "${length(var.object_list)}" # perform this action based on the amount of items in the map
  filename = "${element(keys(var.object_list), count.index)}" # lookup the key name based on the current count index.
  content = "${lookup(var.object_list, "${element(keys(var.object_list), count.index)}")}" # lookup the key's value based on a double interpolation.
}

how would you do this in 0.12?

You dont need to do this in terraform 12, terraform 12 introduces for and foreach which makes the approach much easier and cleaner
https://www.terraform.io/docs/configuration/expressions.html