README

A minimal and lightweight .env file parser for PHP with no dependencies.

Description

Lite Env is a simple library for loading environment variables from .env files in PHP applications. It's designed to be lightweight and dependency-free, making it ideal for use in other libraries where minimizing dependencies is important.

Note: This is a lightweight library primarily intended for developing other libraries. For production applications, consider using more powerful and feature-rich alternatives like vlucas/phpdotenv or symfony/dotenv.

Features

• Zero dependencies
• Simple and intuitive API
• Automatic loading of .env and .env.local files
• Support for variable interpolation (${VAR} or $VAR syntax)
• Type conversion (strings, integers, floats, booleans, null)
• Multiline values
• Quoted values (both single and double quotes)
• Inline comments support with proper whitespace handling (space or tab before #)
• Multiple file loading with single method call
• Comprehensive error handling and validation

Installation

composer require petstack/lite-env

Usage

Basic Usage

<?php

use PetStack\LiteEnv\Env;

// Load variables from .env and .env.local files automatically
Env::load();

// Load custom files along with default ones
Env::load('/path/to/custom.env');

// Load multiple custom files
Env::load('/path/to/.env.production', '/path/to/.env.secrets');

// Disable automatic loading of default files
Env::$disableDefaultPaths = true;
Env::load('/path/to/custom.env'); // Only loads custom.env

// Get an environment variable
$dbName = Env::get('DATABASE_NAME');

// Get with a default value if the variable doesn't exist
// (also returned when the requested key has an invalid format)
$port = Env::get('PORT', 3000);

// Check if a variable exists
if (Env::has('DEBUG')) {
    // Do something
}

// Get all loaded environment variable keys
$keys = Env::getAllKeys();

New in v2.0: Automatic File Loading

By default, Env::load() will automatically load both .env and .env.local files if they exist in the current directory. The .env.local file takes precedence over .env for overlapping variables.

// This will load .env, .env.local, and custom.env (in that order)
Env::load('custom.env');

// To load only specific files without defaults:
Env::$disableDefaultPaths = true;
Env::load('production.env', 'secrets.env');

Example .env File

# Database configuration
DATABASE_NAME=myapp_db
DATABASE_USER=dbuser
DATABASE_PASS=secret

# Application settings
APP_ENV=development
DEBUG=true
PORT=3000

# Path configuration with variable interpolation
BASE_PATH=/var/www/app
LOG_PATH=${BASE_PATH}/logs
CACHE_PATH=$BASE_PATH/cache

# Values with inline comments (space or tab before `#`)
API_URL=https://api.example.com   # Production API endpoint
TIMEOUT=30	# Connection timeout in seconds

# Multiline value
MULTILINE_VALUE="line1
line2
line3"

# Quoted values with inner quotes
QUOTED_VALUE='He said "Hello World"'
JSON_CONFIG={"key": "value", "debug": true}

Type Conversion

Lite Env automatically converts values to appropriate PHP types:

• true, (true), TRUE → true (boolean)
• false, (false), FALSE → false (boolean)
• null, (null) → null
• empty, (empty), "", '' → '' (empty string)
• Numeric values → integers or floats

What's new in v2.1

• Env::get() no longer throws on an invalid key format — it returns the provided default value instead. This makes get() safe to call with arbitrary input.
• Inline comments can now be separated from the value by a tab (\t#), not only by a space ( #).
• EOF handling — the last KEY=VALUE pair is now emitted correctly even if the file does not end with a newline.
• Multiline quoted values are now assembled correctly across lines.
• putenv() now receives the raw string value; the type-converted value is still available via Env::get(), $_ENV and $_SERVER.

Version 2.0 Breaking Changes

If you're upgrading from v1.x, please note these breaking changes:

1. Class is now final - You cannot extend the Env class anymore
2. Removed loadMultiple() method - Use load(string ...$paths) instead:

   // Old (v1.x)
   Env::loadMultiple('/path/to/.env', '/path/to/another.env');
   
   // New (v2.0)
   Env::load('/path/to/.env', '/path/to/another.env');

3. Automatic default file loading - load() now loads .env and .env.local by default

See CHANGELOG.md for detailed migration guide.

Requirements

• PHP 8.3 or higher

License

This library is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.