Module

std/dotenv/README.md

Deno standard library
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Dotenv handling for deno.

Usage

Setup a .env file in the root of your project.

# .env
GREETING=hello world

Then import the configuration using the config function.

// app.ts
import { config } from "https://deno.land/std@$STD_VERSION/dotenv/mod.ts";

console.log(await config());

Then run your app.

> deno run --allow-read app.ts
{ GREETING: "hello world" }

Options

  • path?: string: Optional path to .env file. Defaults to ./.env.
  • export?: boolean: Set to true to export all .env variables to the current processes environment. Variables are then accessable via Deno.env.get(<key>). Defaults to false.
  • safe?: boolean: Set to true to ensure that all necessary environment variables are defined after reading from .env. It will read .env.example to get the list of needed variables.
  • example?: string: Optional path to .env.example file. Defaults to ./.env.example.
  • allowEmptyValues?: boolean: Set to true to allow required env variables to be empty. Otherwise it will throw an error if any variable is empty. Defaults to false.
  • defaults?: string: Optional path to .env.defaults file which defaults to ./.env.defaults.

Auto loading

load.ts automatically loads the local .env file on import and exports it to the process environment:

# .env
GREETING=hello world
// app.ts
import "https://deno.land/std@$STD_VERSION/dotenv/load.ts";

console.log(Deno.env.get("GREETING"));
> deno run --allow-env --allow-read app.ts
hello world

Safe Mode

To enable safe mode, create a .env.example file in the root of the project.

# .env.example
GREETING=

Then import the configuration with safe option set to true.

// app.ts
import { config } from "https://deno.land/std@$STD_VERSION/dotenv/mod.ts";

console.log(await config({ safe: true }));

If any of the defined variables is not in .env, an error will occur. This method is preferred because it prevents runtime errors in a production application due to improper configuration.

Another way to supply required variables is externally, like so:

GREETING="hello world" deno run --allow-env app.ts

Default Values

Default values can be easily added via creating a .env.defaults file and using the same format as an.env file.

# .env.defaults
# Will not be set if GREETING is set in base .env file
GREETING="a secret to everybody"

Parsing Rules

The parsing engine currently supports the following rules:

  • Variables that already exist in the environment are not overridden with export: true
  • BASIC=basic becomes { BASIC: "basic" }
  • empty lines are skipped
  • lines beginning with # are treated as comments
  • empty values become empty strings (EMPTY= becomes { EMPTY: "" })
  • single and double quoted values are escaped (SINGLE_QUOTE='quoted' becomes { SINGLE_QUOTE: "quoted" })
  • new lines are expanded in double quoted values (MULTILINE="new\nline" becomes
{ MULTILINE: "new
line" }
  • inner quotes are maintained (think JSON) (JSON={"foo": "bar"} becomes { JSON: "{\"foo\": \"bar\"}" })
  • whitespace is removed from both ends of unquoted values (see more on trim) (FOO= some value becomes { FOO: "some value" })
  • whitespace is preserved on both ends of quoted values (FOO=" some value " becomes { FOO: " some value " })

Credit

  • Inspired by the node module dotenv.