The Dotenv Component
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Read the updated version of this page for Symfony 7.1 (the current stable version).
The Dotenv Component parses
.envfiles to make environment variables stored in them accessible via$_ENVor$_SERVER.
3.3
The Dotenv component was introduced in Symfony 3.3.
Installation
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$ composer require symfony/dotenv:^3.4Note
If you install this component outside of a Symfony application, you must
require the vendor/autoload.php file in your code to enable the class
autoloading mechanism provided by Composer. Read
this article for more details.
Usage
Sensitive information and environment-dependent settings should be defined as
environment variables (as recommended for twelve-factor applications). Using
a .env file to store those environment variables eases development and CI
management by keeping them in one "standard" place and agnostic of the
technology stack you are using (nginx vs PHP built-in server for instance).
Note
PHP has a lot of different implementations of this "pattern". This
implementation's goal is to replicate what source .env would do. It
tries to be as similar as possible with the standard shell's behavior (so
no value validation for instance).
Load a .env file in your PHP application via Dotenv::load():
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use Symfony\Component\Dotenv\Dotenv;
$dotenv = new Dotenv();
$dotenv->load(__DIR__.'/.env');
// You can also load several files
$dotenv->load(__DIR__.'/.env', __DIR__.'/.env.dev');Given the following .env file content:
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# .env
DB_USER=root
DB_PASS=passAccess the value with $_ENV in your code:
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$dbUser = $_ENV['DB_USER'];
// you can also use ``$_SERVER``Note
Symfony Dotenv never overwrites existing environment variables.
You should never store a .env file in your code repository as it might
contain sensitive information; create a .env.dist file with sensible
defaults instead.
Note
Symfony Dotenv can be used in any environment of your application:
development, testing, staging and even production. However, in production
it's recommended to configure real environment variables to avoid the
performance overhead of parsing the .env file for every request.
As a .env file is a regular shell script, you can source it in your own
shell scripts:
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source .envAdd comments by prefixing them with #:
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# Database credentials
DB_USER=root
DB_PASS=pass # This is the secret passwordUse environment variables in values by prefixing variables with $:
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DB_USER=root
DB_PASS=${DB_USER}pass # Include the user as a password prefixNote
The order is important when some env var depends on the value of other env
vars. In the above example, DB_PASS must be defined after DB_USER.
Moreover, if you define multiple .env files and put DB_PASS first,
its value will depend on the DB_USER value defined in other files
instead of the value defined in this file.
Embed commands via $() (not supported on Windows):
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START_TIME=$(date)Note
Note that using $() might not work depending on your shell.
