symfony/dotenv

Registers environment variables from a .env file

v8.1.0 2026-05-29 05:06 UTC

Requires

• php: >=8.4.1

Requires (Dev)

• symfony/console: ^7.4|^8.0
• symfony/process: ^7.4|^8.0

MIT

• Fabien Potencier
• Symfony Community

• environment
• env
• dotenv

README

Symfony Dotenv parses .env files to make environment variables stored in them accessible via $_SERVER or $_ENV.

Getting Started

composer require symfony/dotenv

Usage

For an .env file with this format:

YOUR_VARIABLE_NAME=my-string

use Symfony\Component\Dotenv\Dotenv;

$dotenv = new Dotenv();
$dotenv->load(__DIR__.'/.env');

// you can also load several files
$dotenv->load(__DIR__.'/.env', __DIR__.'/.env.dev');

// overwrites existing env variables
$dotenv->overload(__DIR__.'/.env');

// loads .env, .env.local, and .env.$APP_ENV.local or .env.$APP_ENV
$dotenv->loadEnv(__DIR__.'/.env');

// Usage with $_ENV
$envVariable = $_ENV['YOUR_VARIABLE_NAME'];

// Usage with $_SERVER
$envVariable = $_SERVER['YOUR_VARIABLE_NAME'];

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Resources

• Contributing
• Report issues and send Pull Requests in the main Symfony repository