How to pass a list as an environment variable?

Question

I use a list as part of a Python program, and wanted to convert that to an environment variable.

So, it\'s like this:

list1 = [\'a.1\',\'b.2\',\'c.3\']
         


        

Answer 1

The environs PyPI package handles my use case well: load a single setting from env var and coerce it to a list, int, etc:

from environs import Env

env = Env()
env.read_env()  # read .env file, if it exists
# required variables
gh_user = env("GITHUB_USER")  # => 'sloria'
secret = env("SECRET")  # => raises error if not set

# casting
max_connections = env.int("MAX_CONNECTIONS")  # => 100
ship_date = env.date("SHIP_DATE")  # => datetime.date(1984, 6, 25)
ttl = env.timedelta("TTL")  # => datetime.timedelta(0, 42)

# providing a default value
enable_login = env.bool("ENABLE_LOGIN", False)  # => True
enable_feature_x = env.bool("ENABLE_FEATURE_X", False)  # => False

# parsing lists
gh_repos = env.list("GITHUB_REPOS")  # => ['webargs', 'konch', 'ped']
coords = env.list("COORDINATES", subcast=float)  # => [23.3, 50.0]

Answer 2

I'm not sure why you'd do it through the environment variables, but you can do this:

export LIST_ITEMS ="a.1 b.2 c.3"

And in Python:

list1 = [i.split(".") for i in os.environ.get("LIST_ITEMS").split(" ")] 

for k, v in list1:
    print(k, v)

Answer 3

If you want to set the environment variable using that format, this would work:

from ast import literal_eval

list1 = [literal_eval(e.strip()) for e in os.environ["LIST_ITEMS"].split(',')]
for item in list1:
    alpha,number = item.split('.')
    print alpha, number

Output:

a 1
b 2
c 3

Answer 4

The rationale

I recommend using JSON if you want to have data structured in an environment variable. JSON is simple to write / read, can be written in a single line, parsers exist, developers know it.

The solution

To test, execute this in your shell:

$ export ENV_LIST_EXAMPLE='["Foo", "bar"]'

Python code to execute in the same shell:

import os
import json

env_list = json.loads(os.environ['ENV_LIST_EXAMPLE'])
print(env_list)
print(type(env_list))

gives

['Foo', 'bar']
<class 'list'>

Package

Chances are high that you are interested in cfg_load