Ubuntu Manpage: Env::Dot - Read environment variables from .env file

NAME

       Env::Dot - Read environment variables from .env file

VERSION

       version 0.018

SYNOPSIS

           use Env::Dot;

           print $ENV{'VAR_DEFINED_IN_DOTENV_FILE'};

DESCRIPTION

More flexibility in how you manage and use your .env file.

Attn. Existing environment variables always take precedence to dotenv variables! A dotenv variable
(variable from a file) does not overwrite an existing environment variable. This is by design because a
dotenv file is to augment the environment, not to replace it.

This means that you can override a variable in `.env` file by creating its counterpart in the
environment. For instance:

unset VAR
echo "VAR='Good value'" >> .env
perl -e 'use Env::Dot; print "VAR:$ENV{VAR}\n";'
# VAR:Good value
VAR='Better value'; export VAR
perl -e 'use Env::Dot; print "VAR:$ENV{VAR}\n";'
# VAR:Better value

Features
If no .env file is present, then do nothing
By default, Env::Dot will do nothing if there is no .env file. You can also configure Env::Dot
to emit an alarm or break execution, if you want.

Specify other dotenv files with path
If your .env file is located in another path, not the current working directory, you can use the
environment variable ENVDOT_FILEPATHS to tell where your dotenv file is located. You can specify
several file paths; just separate them by :. Env::Dot will load the files in the reverse order,
starting from the last. This is the same ordering as used in PATH variable: the first overrules
the following ones, that is, when reading from the last path to the first path, if same variable
is present in more than one file, the later one replaces the one already read.

Attn. If you are using Windows, separate the paths by <;>!

For example, if you have the following directory structure:

project-root
| .env
+ - sub-project
| .env

and you specify ENVDOT_FILEPATHS=project-root/sub-project/.env:project-root/.env, then the
variables in file project-root/.env will get replaced by the more specific variables in
project-root/sub-project/.env.

In Windows, this would be ENVDOT_FILEPATHS=project-root\sub-project\.env;project-root\.env

N.B. The ordering has changed in version 0.0.9.

Support different types of .env files
Unix Shell source command compatible dotenv files use double or single quotation marks (" or ')
to define a variable which has spaces. But, for instance, Docker compatible .env files do not use
quotation marks. The variable's value begins with = sign and ends with linefeed.

You can specify in the dotenv file itself - by using meta commands - which type of file it is.

Use executable envdot to bring the variables into your shell
The executable is distributed together with Env::Dot package. It is in the directory script.

The executable script/envdot is not Windows compatible!

A Windows (MS Command and Powershell compatible) version, script\envdot.bat, is possible in a
future release. Please contact the author if you are interested in it.

eval "$(envdot)"

N.B. If your .env file(s) contain variables which need interpolating, for example, to combine
their value from other variables or execute a command to produce their value, you have to use the
envdot program. Env::Dot does not do any interpolating. It cannot because that would involve
running the variable in the shell context.

DotEnv File Meta Commands
The var: commands affect only the subsequent variable definition. If there is another envdot command,
the second overwrites the first and default values are applied again.

read:from_parent
By setting this option to true, Env::Dot or envdot command will search for .env files in the file
system tree upwards. It will load the first .env file it finds from the current directory
upwards to root.

Using read:from_parent will only find and read one .env file in a parent directory. If you want
to chain the .env files, they all must set read:from_parent - except the top one.

This functionality can be useful in situations where you have parallel projects which share
common environment variables in one .env file in a parent directory.

If there is no parent .env file, Env::Dot will break execution and give an error.

By default this setting is off.

read:allow_missing_parent
When using option read:from_parent, if the parent .env file does not exist, by default Env::Dot
will emit an error and break execution. In some situations, it might be normal that a parent
.env file could be missing. Turn on option read:allow_missing_parent if you do not want an error
in that case.

By default this setting is off.

file:type
Changes how Env::Dot reads lines below from this commands. Default is:

# envdot (file:type=shell)
VAR="value"

Other possible value of file:type is:

# envdot (file:type=plain)
VAR=My var value

var:allow_interpolate
By default, when writing variable definitions for the shell, every variable is treated as static
and surrounded with single quotation marks ' in Unix shell which means shell will read the
variable content as is. By setting this to 1 or true, you allow shell to interpolate. This meta
command is only useful when running envdot command to create variable definitions for eval
command to read.

# envdot (var:allow_interpolate)
DYNAMIC_VAR="$(pwd)/${ANOTHER_VAR}"

STATUS

       This module is currently being developed so changes in the API are possible, though not likely.

DEPENDENCIES

       No external dependencies outside Perl's standard distribution.

FUNCTIONS

       No functions exported to the calling namespace.

   load_vars
       Load variables from .env file or files in environment variable ENVDOT_FILEPATHS.

AUTHOR

       Mikko Koivunalho <mikkoi@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       This software is copyright (c) 2023 by Mikko Koivunalho.

       This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under  the  same  terms  as  the  Perl  5
       programming language system itself.

perl v5.40.1                                       2025-06-09                                      Env::Dot(3pm)