darlanschmeller/php-env-loader

Lightweight .env file loader for PHP with automatic type casting

v1.0.0 2026-01-15 11:42 UTC

Requires

• php: >=8.0

MIT

README

A lightweight, object-oriented PHP library to load .env files into $_ENV with automatic type casting and quote handling. Perfect for small projects, scripts, or when you want a simple alternative to vlucas/phpdotenv.

Features

• Load .env files into $_ENV automatically
• Supports export keyword
• Inline comment handling (# comment)
• Quote string handling ("string" or 'string')
• Automatic type casting:
  • "true" / "false" → bool
  • Numeric strings → int or float
  • "null" → null
• Static helper method for convenience

Installation

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/DarlanSchmeller/php-env-loader.git

Include in your project:

require __DIR__ . '/src/EnvLoader.php';
use Src\EnvLoader;

Usage

Basic Usage

$env = new EnvLoader(); // Defaults to '../.env'
$variables = $env->load();

var_dump($variables); // Loaded env variables
var_dump($_ENV);      // Also accessible globally

Static Convenience

If you just want to load a .env without instantiating the class:

$variables = EnvLoader::loadFrom(__DIR__ . '/.env');

Sample .env

DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_USER=root
DB_PASSWORD="supersecret"
APP_DEBUG=true
TIMEOUT=5.5

After loading

$_ENV['DB_PORT'];      // int(3306)
$_ENV['DB_PASSWORD'];  // string("supersecret")
$_ENV['APP_DEBUG'];    // bool(true)
$_ENV['TIMEOUT'];      // float(5.5)

Note

• Inline comments are supported outside quotes, e.g., DB_HOST=127.0.0.1 # main database host
• Quotes around values are stripped automatically
• Empty strings and "null" values are converted to null