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15.

Environment Variables

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Our Slack feature is working... but this kind of sucks! Our "secret" URL is hardcoded in the middle of a config file!

3 lines | config/packages/nexy_slack.yaml
nexy_slack:
endpoint: 'https://hooks.slack.com/services/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'

This is a bummer because I don't want to commit this to version control! And what if I need to use a different value on production?

We're going to have this problem a bunch more times - for example - with our database password! We need some good way of isolating any sensitive or server-specific config so that they're not stuck in the middle of our code.

Intro to Environment Variables

One of the best ways to do this - and the way that Symfony recommends - is via environment variables. OooOOoo. But... environment variables are still kind of a mystery to a lot of PHP devs. A mostly accurate description is that they're variables that are set on your operating system, that can then be read by your code. How? Usually with the getenv() function or $_SERVER.

Actually, open public/index.php. Hey! Our code is already reading an environment variable: APP_ENV:

40 lines | public/index.php
// ... lines 1 - 9
// The check is to ensure we don't use .env in production
if (!isset($_SERVER['APP_ENV'])) {
if (!class_exists(Dotenv::class)) {
throw new \RuntimeException('APP_ENV environment variable is not defined. You need to define environment variables for configuration or add "symfony/dotenv" as a Composer dependency to load variables from a .env file.');
}
(new Dotenv())->load(__DIR__.'/../.env');
}
$env = $_SERVER['APP_ENV'] ?? 'dev';
// ... lines 19 - 40

Tip

If you start a new project today, you won't see this APP_ENV logic. It's been moved to a config/bootstrap.php file.

But here's the question: how can we remove this hardcoded URL, and instead tell the NexySlackBundle to read from some environment variable? I mean, it's not like we can just use the getenv() PHP function in the middle of YAML!

Copy the URL - we'll need it later, then empty the value. Symfony has a special syntax that can be used in config files to read from environment variables. It's a little weird at first, but stick with me: %env()%. Between the parentheses, put the name of the environment variable. We'll be setting a new environment variable, so how about, SLACK_WEBHOOK_ENDPOINT:

3 lines | config/packages/nexy_slack.yaml
nexy_slack:
endpoint: '%env(SLACK_WEBHOOK_ENDPOINT)%'

By convention, environment variables are uppercase. And huh... this looks like a parameter: it has the % at the beginning and at the end. And... internally, it is! It's just a special parameter that will eventually resolve to this environment variable.

If we refresh now... error! Perfect!

Environment variable not found: SLACK_WEBHOOK_ENDPOINT.

Setting Environment Variables in .env

I love clear errors. So... how the heck do we set environment variables? Well... unfortunately, it totally depends on your setup! The solution is different if you're using Apache, Nginx, Docker or some Platform-as-a-Service. I'll talk more about that later.

But since setting environment variables can be a pain, Symfony gives us a much easier way to set them while developing. How? Open the .env file at the root of our project:

# This file is a "template" of which env vars need to be defined for your application
# Copy this file to .env file for development, create environment variables when deploying to production
# https://symfony.com/doc/current/best_practices/configuration.html#infrastructure-related-configuration

###> symfony/framework-bundle ###
APP_ENV=dev
APP_SECRET=5ea3114a349591bd131296e00f21c20a
#TRUSTED_PROXIES=127.0.0.1,127.0.0.2
#TRUSTED_HOSTS=localhost,example.com
###< symfony/framework-bundle ###

This file is loaded inside index.php... as long as the APP_ENV environment variable isn't set some other way:

40 lines | public/index.php
// ... lines 1 - 9
// The check is to ensure we don't use .env in production
if (!isset($_SERVER['APP_ENV'])) {
if (!class_exists(Dotenv::class)) {
throw new \RuntimeException('APP_ENV environment variable is not defined. You need to define environment variables for configuration or add "symfony/dotenv" as a Composer dependency to load variables from a .env file.');
}
(new Dotenv())->load(__DIR__.'/../.env');
}
// ... lines 17 - 40

And... it's pretty simple: it reads all of these keys and sets each as a new environment variable. This file was originally added by a recipe and - this is really cool - other recipes will update this file: adding new environment variables for their libraries.

But, we're totally free to add our own stuff. Let's invent a new section on top:

# This file is a "template" of which env vars need to be defined for your application
# Copy this file to .env file for development, create environment variables when deploying to production
# https://symfony.com/doc/current/best_practices/configuration.html#infrastructure-related-configuration

### CUSTOM VARS

### END CUSTOM VARS

###> symfony/framework-bundle ###
# ...
###< symfony/framework-bundle ###

The fancy code comments around the framework-bundle section were added by Flex: it's so that it knows where the environment variables live for that library... basically so that it can remove them if we remove that bundle.

Our new section is just for clarity.

Add SLACK_WEBHOOK_ENDPOINT= and then our URL:

# This file is a "template" of which env vars need to be defined for your application
# Copy this file to .env file for development, create environment variables when deploying to production
# https://symfony.com/doc/current/best_practices/configuration.html#infrastructure-related-configuration

### CUSTOM VARS
SLACK_WEBHOOK_ENDPOINT=https://hooks.slack.com/services/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
### END CUSTOM VARS

###> symfony/framework-bundle ###
# ...
###< symfony/framework-bundle ###

And yep! That's all we need! Refresh! It works!

Seeing all Environment Variables

If you want to see all the environment variables that are currently set, there's a handy bin/console command for that:

php bin/console about

This shows your Symfony version, some system info and - hello! - environment variables!

Updating .env.dist

Tip

New projects will not have a .env.dist file. Instead, your .env file is committed to your repository and should hold sensible, but not "secret" default values. To override these defaults with values specific to your machine, create a .env.local file. This file will be ignored by git.

In addition to the .env file, there is another file: .env.dist. Copy our new section, open that file, and paste! Remove the sensitive part of the URL:

15 lines | .env.dist
# This file is a "template" of which env vars need to be defined for your application
# Copy this file to .env file for development, create environment variables when deploying to production
# https://symfony.com/doc/current/best_practices/configuration.html#infrastructure-related-configuration
### CUSTOM VARS
SLACK_WEBHOOK_ENDPOINT=https://hooks.slack.com/...
### END CUSTOM VARS
###> symfony/framework-bundle ###
APP_ENV=dev
APP_SECRET=5ea3114a349591bd131296e00f21c20a
#TRUSTED_PROXIES=127.0.0.1,127.0.0.2
#TRUSTED_HOSTS=localhost,example.com
###< symfony/framework-bundle ###

This file is not read by Symfony: it's just meant to be a template file that contains all the environment variables our app needs. Why? Well, this file will be committed to the repository... but .env will not: it's in our .gitignore. So, when a new dev works on the project for the first time, they can copy .env.dist to .env and then fill in their custom values.

And... yea! That's basically it! There is one fancy syntax in config files to read environment variables, and a .env file to help set them during development.

Environment Variables on Production

But... what about on production? Let's talk a bit more about this.