Environment Variables

Environment Variables

Environment variables are a way to store configuration outside of your code. This is essential for keeping sensitive information secure and making your application configurable across different environments.

Why Use Environment Variables?

• Security: Keep secrets out of your code
• Flexibility: Different settings for dev/staging/production
• Best Practice: Follows the 12-factor app methodology

Create .env File

Create a .env file in your project root:

# Database
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:password@localhost/dbname

# Django
SECRET_KEY=your-secret-key-here
DEBUG=True
ALLOWED_HOSTS=localhost,127.0.0.1

# API Keys
API_KEY=your-api-key-here

# Email
EMAIL_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
EMAIL_PORT=587
EMAIL_USER=your-email@gmail.com
EMAIL_PASSWORD=your-password

Install python-dotenv

pip install python-dotenv

Load Environment Variables

In your Python code:

from dotenv import load_dotenv
import os

# Load .env file
load_dotenv()

# Access variables
database_url = os.getenv('DATABASE_URL')
secret_key = os.getenv('SECRET_KEY')
debug = os.getenv('DEBUG', 'False').lower() == 'true'

Django Settings Example

import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv

load_dotenv()

SECRET_KEY = os.getenv('SECRET_KEY')
DEBUG = os.getenv('DEBUG', 'False').lower() == 'true'
ALLOWED_HOSTS = os.getenv('ALLOWED_HOSTS', '').split(',')

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
        'NAME': os.getenv('DB_NAME'),
        'USER': os.getenv('DB_USER'),
        'PASSWORD': os.getenv('DB_PASSWORD'),
        'HOST': os.getenv('DB_HOST', 'localhost'),
        'PORT': os.getenv('DB_PORT', '5432'),
    }
}

Important Notes

• Never commit .env files to Git
• Add .env to .gitignore
• Use different .env files for different environments
• Document required environment variables in README