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phpenvironment-variablesgetenv

How to get Environment Variable from Shell in PHP/phpinfo()

I'm trying to use SendGrid's API for which I need to access an environment variable that I've added to my root directory using the following command. 

echo "export SENDGRID_API_KEY='YOUR_API_KEY'" > sendgrid.env
echo "sendgrid.env" >> .gitignore
source ./sendgrid.env

This has created a sendgrid.env file in my root folder, added sendgrid.env to my .gitignore file, and added SENDGRID_API_KEY as an environment variable.

However, PHP's getenv('SENDGRID_API_KEY') key is not returning anything, and PHP's phpinfo() does not reflect SENDGRID_API_KEY as an environment variable.

Here are the API installation instructions.

Solution

  • It is implied that you should use another package for reading the .env files. There is a sample on their official site that uses a Dotenv class to load contents of the files into environment:

    <?php

require 'vendor/autoload.php';
Dotenv::load(__DIR__);
$sendgrid_apikey = getenv('YOUR_SENDGRID_APIKEY');

    Still, they don't even explain where the class comes from. Apparently, they mean that you should install vlucas/phpdotenv package. Note, that in the current version of this package, the load method is non-static (it actually was static in early versions):

    $dotenv = new Dotenv\Dotenv(__DIR__);
$dotenv->load();