This package loads the variables defined in the .env
file in the
current working directory (as reported by getwd()
), and sets them as
environment variables.
This happens automatically when the dotenv
package is loaded, so the
typical use-case is to just put a library(dotenv)
call at the
beginning of your R script.
Alternatively a dotenv::load_dot_env()
call can be used to load
variables from arbitrary files.
install.packages("dotenv")
You can simply put
library(dotenv)
at the beginning of your script, to load the environment variables
defined in .env
in the current working directory.
The .env
file is parsed line by line, and line is expected to have one
of the following formats:
VARIABLE=value
VARIABLE2="quoted value"
VARIABLE3='another quoted variable'
# Comment line
export EXPORTED="exported variable"
export EXPORTED2=another
In more details:
- A leading
export
is ignored, to keep the file compatible with Unix shells. - No whitespace is allowed right before or after the equal sign, again, to promote compatilibity with Unix shells.
- No multi-line variables are supported currently. The file is strictly parsed line by line.
- Unlike for Unix shells, unquoted values are not terminated by whitespace.
- Comments start with
#
, without any leading whitespace. You cannot mix variable definitions and comments in the same line. - Empty lines (containing whitespace only) are ignored.
It is suggested to keep the file in a form that is parsed the same way
with dotenv
and bash
(or other shells).