CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rubyenvironment-variableszsh
doremi
doremi

Reputation: 15329

Accessing environment vars from Ruby using a .env (dotenv) file in zsh

I'm using the oh-my-zsh dotenv plugin, which loads .env file, if it exists, whenever I cd into a project directory.

I know it works because I can see my custom environment vars set when I run the set cmd.

I can can also echo my custom environment variable from command line:

$ echo $FOO
'foo'

However, I cannot access this environment variable via the env command or Ruby:

$ irb
2.4.1 :001 > ENV['FOO']
nil

How can I make sure environment variables loaded from my .env are accessible from Ruby?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1536

Answers (1)

Adaephon
Adaephon

Reputation: 18389

Contrary to what is stated in the documentation of dotenv, you actually need to use the export keyword within the .env file in order to make the parameters available to the environment, e.g.

export FOO=foo

The only exception would be, if the parameter was already an environment variable. For example if it had been exported in ~/.zshrc or if it was already part of the environment zsh got when it started (e.g. PATH or HOME).

All dotenv does is automatically sourcing any .env file when changing into a directory. There is no additional "magic". That means .env needs to be a valid zsh script and its content is run in the context of the current shell session (essentially as if you typed it manually).

It also means that the usual rules apply. That is, just settings parameters makes them available to the current shell context only. In order to make them available as environment variables they need to be exported (either before, during or after being set). So unless a parameter has already been exported before, export is not really "optional" in .env.

Upvotes: 3

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