What is the reasoning behind DJANGO_READ_DOT_ENV_FILE?

Since this commit, the .env isn’t loaded without manually setting DJANGO_READ_DOT_ENV_FILE.

The comment states:

.env file, should load only in development environment

I don’t really agree with this since we use .env files extensively on production servers. Not a big problem as we can easily add DJANGO_READ_DOT_ENV_FILE to the supervisor config. But I don’t understand what problem it fixes.

For local development this is a bit cumbersome. There’s no documentation explaining the need to set this variable. I’d expect it here for example.

This env variable also isn’t set in local docker config (dev.yml), disabling the possibility to overwrite settings via a .env file.

[jeffcjohnson]

I was just looking to see how I could use the .env file in dev automatically without needing to define the DJANGO_READ_DOT_ENV_FILE environment variable. This little hack in config/settings/local.py seems to do the trick nicely. I figured it might give the next person a head start. If there is a better way please let us know.

config/settings/local.py

import socket
import os
os.environ["DJANGO_READ_DOT_ENV_FILE"] = "true"
from .base import *  # noqa

[pydanny]

Are you given though to this on replacing django-environ with another package or to develop an inhouse implementation?

Replacing this package will be a lot of work. Except for some edge cases, it works okay, so why spend the effort? Also, I would rather piggy back of a package then invent something new that has to be maintained. Unless there’s a pressing need, and funds to support the reviews by core maintainers are made available, we’re not switching.

If the alternative is to incorporate another package, which one would be a good candidate?

Why don’t you do the research yourself instead of asking others to volunteer their free time? Compare a dozen options for suitability, summarize the ones you think are good, and suggest the best three in a separate issue.