Dotenv multiline variables

Question

I'm using dotenv.

A Ruby gem to load environment variables from .env.

Is it possible to have multiline variables in my .env file?

e.g.

SOMETHING_CERTIFICATE="-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
JSDFALDAFSSKLABVCXZLV2314IH4IHDFG9AYDF9DSSDF82QWEIWFHDSSD8SADF0=
-----END CERTIFICATE-----"

^ having the above just throws an error on that middle line, as if it's not part of the string and I'm trying to create an improperly formatted variable.

Solution 1

Did you try reading the documentation?

Multi-line values

If you need multiline variables, for example private keys, you can double quote strings and use the \n character for newlines:

PRIVATE_KEY="-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----\nHkVN9…\n-----END DSA PRIVATE KEY-----\n"

Solution 2

From the documentation Brian posted above:

Alternatively, multi-line values with line breaks are now supported for quoted values.

So the solution you sketched in your question is legit now!

Comments

[Gokul]

Did you tried "\n"?

[Mirror318]

I did try "\n", it just came up in the error message automatically parsed to "\\n"—but that's because I tried to keep the whitespace newlines as well as the "\n"s. Putting it all on a single line with the "\n" worked, although it's not really what i wanted, it gets ugly for long strings.

[Gundam Meister]

To add to Brian answer. If you need to consume the PRIVATE_KEY in a config file for example, you can do something like this: signing_key "<<-EOL\n" + "#{ENV['PRIVATE_KEY']}".gsub("\\n","\n") + "EOL\n"

[mxcl]

Answers containing “Did you try reading the documentation” do not deserve upvotes.

[davetapley]

sed version for the lazy: cat id_rsa | sed -z -e 's/\n/\\n/g'

[MrMesees]

Weirdly, in a docker setup, me and my colleague (same OS) are getting inconsistencies with that. I Think it might be safest to add the newlines.