django 2 not able to load env variables from the .env file to setting.py file

Question

I tried to load environment variables from a file named .env to settings.py file here i created the .env file and settings file same folder.

this is my .env file

Answer 1

I think there are mainly two packages to use pip install django-environ and pip install python-dotenv

I choose to use dotenv, as django-environ give me some error. Error: The SECRET_KEY setting must not be empty Below is my working solution, notice that it is square bracket [] when calling os.environ.

My version is Django==2.2.6, python==3.7.5

settings.py

import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv

BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
load_dotenv(os.path.join(BASE_DIR, '.env'))
SECRET_KEY = os.environ['SECRET_KEY']

and the .env file is storing in the current directory with

.env

export SECRET_KEY="xxxxxx"
export DB_NAME = "xxx"

Answer 2

Try this instead:

import os
import environ

BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
environ.Env.read_env(env_file=os.path.join(BASE_DIR, '.env'))

Answer 3

For future Googlers here's another approach. Inside manage.py add:

from dotenv import load_dotenv
load_dotenv()

Now you can do the following anywhere else in your project (including settings.py) to get access to environment variables:

import os
os.environ.get("NAME")

Answer 4

I'm not quite sure, but maybe it has to do with the path to the .env file. Maybe you should try in settings.py:

BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(file)))

dotenv_path = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, file.env)

Answer 5

I was unable to load environment variables using load_dotenv() in Python version 3.5 - later versions were working fine.

The workaround is explicitly include the folder containing .env in the path. So, assuming folder project contains .env, settings.py will have following lines:

import os 
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
from dotenv import load_dotenv 
load_dotenv(os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "project", ".env"))