Parse a .env (dotenv) file directly using BASH

parse_dotenv.bash

# Pass the env-vars to MYCOMMAND
eval $(egrep -v '^#' .env | xargs) MYCOMMAND
# … or ...
# Export the vars in .env into your shell:
export $(egrep -v '^#' .env | xargs)

@mopcweb Can you update with input and output, what is supported in the .env file?
And how much fun did you have, creating your own solution ;)?

# INPUT                     Expected:
'FOO=value'                 FOO='value'
"FOO=#value # comment"      FOO='#value # comment'
"FOO=value   "              FOO='value   '
'FOO='                      FOO=''
'export FOO=value'          export FOO='value'
"FOO=foo bar"               FOO='foo bar'
"FOO=   foo"                FOO='   foo'

Test cases from @ko1nksm: https://github.com/ko1nksm/shdotenv/blob/main/spec/docker_spec.sh.
Note: check his awesome script: https://github.com/ko1nksm/shdotenv !

Why not dotenv-cli?

$ dotenv <command with arguments> 
# or
$ dotenv -e .env.custom <command with arguments>

Because not every system has nodejs on it. And it's good that way.

One-liner that allows unquoted variables that contain spaces:

OLD_IFS=$IFS; IFS=$'\n'; for x in `grep -v '^#.*' .env`; do export $x; done; IFS=$OLD_IFS

ead_var() {
VAR=$(grep $1 $2 | xargs)
IFS="=" read -ra VAR <<< "$VAR"
echo ${VAR[1]}
}

MY_VAR=$(read_var MY_VAR .env)

Perfect, thanks

What about this

# save the existing environment variables
prevEnv=$(env)

# if the .env file exists, source it
[ -f .env ] && . .env

# re-export all vars from the env so they override what ever was set in .env
for e in $prevEnv
do
    export $e
done

I wrote my own because was using forbidden symbols in envs.

This basically adds apostrophes so that all variables will be treated as strings. This way you can use your Docker env files and source them with source envs.sh

import sys


def main(input_path, postfix='.sh'):
    with open(input_path, 'r') as file_handle:
        lines = file_handle.readlines()
        envs = {}
        for line in lines:
            try:
                parts = line.split('=')
                name = parts[0]
                value = ''.join(parts[1:]).rstrip('\n')
            except ValueError:
                pass
            else:
                envs[name] = value

    output_path = f'{input_path}{postfix}'
    with open(output_path, 'w') as file_handle:
        lines = []
        for name, value in envs.items():
            line = f'{name}=\'{value}\'\n'
            lines.append(line)
        file_handle.writelines(lines)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    # Passes first argument as input path.
    main(sys.argv[1])