Will env. vars affect imports from node_modules? - node.js

I'm extracting some utility functions from my project into npm modules so I can use them in other projects.
Some of these functions rely on API Keys, and use different API Keys for DEV and PROD environments.
In the main project, this isn't a problem, as my build process sets the environment vars correctly, and my webpack build process results in the correct keys in the source code.
If I include the API Keys in the npm modules with the same DEV | PROD ternaries, will the environment vars of the main project work the same for the modules as they did for the code when it was in the main project?
// mymodule/index.js
export default function() {
return __PROD__ === true ? "abc" : "123"
// ....
}
// project/index.js in __DEV__ environment
import getKey from 'my-module'
getKey() // should return "123"

I may be misunderstanding your question, but what you're using aren't environment variables. They're probably variables you're filling in with Webpack's DefinePlugin, such as
new webpack.DefinePlugin({
__PROD__: true
})
When Webpack compiles your code, the plugin automatically replaces these magic global variables with the value in the configuration file.
The correct way to use an environment variable in node is process.env, as in process.env.__PROD__, and run your program with something like __PROD__=true node index.js, or by the more common convention NODE_ENV=production node index.js.
If you're publishing the compiled Webpack code to npm, then it should work with whatever DefinePlugin value you've set for the npm compile Webpack configuration.

Related

.env variables not available in jest testing environment

When I run my code normally I can access my .env file with const newVar = process.env.MY_DOTENV_VARIABLE, but when I run jest everything becomes undefined. Is this normal for jest? If so, what is the best practice for storing variables?
Is it simply to create a set up file, eg:
// jest.config.ts
setupFiles: [
"<rootDir>/.jest/setEnvVars.ts",
],
# .env
MY_DOTENV_VARIABLE=exampleString
I just needed to install dotenv. I think I got confused where process.env was working previously without the dotenv packaging. This was either due to me setting the env variables with scripts in my package.json file, eg "scripts":"NODE_ENV=test ..." and/or some packages were making changes. (I'm using various aws packages, and I've read that they can change environment variables)

How to make build for react app for different stages?

I have a single page application which is a react app. I am using webpack for it. I am facing problem in configuring server API URL for every stage like test, beta and prod.
Is there some standard way of doing it?
Create a .env and add your variables there ensuring that they are prefixed with REACT_APP e.g. REACT_APP_SERVER_URL=https://example.com
You can create multiple env files one each for dev, prod, test etc. like .env.local, .env.prod
The env files injected from your npm commands
npm start: .env.development.local, .env.development, .env.local, .env
npm run build: .env.production.local, .env.production, .env.local, .env
Use the variable in your code like
if (process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'production') {
analytics.disable();
}
OR
<b>{process.env.NODE_ENV}</b>
Refer https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/blob/master/packages/react-scripts/template/README.md#adding-development-environment-variables-in-env
Do that based on NODE_ENV.
declare an url file in your application for the basepath of it.
const baseURL = (__DEV__) ? url1 : url 2;
or a switch statement, does'nt matter.
Do be able to have access to these variables, you have to use DefinePlugin from webpack.
new webpack.DefinePlugin({
envType: JSON.stringify(process.env.NODE_ENV)
})
or something like that...

create react app cannot read environment variable after build

I have a react app , created with create-react-app then I build the app with command: npm run build
It's using serve to run the app after build, if we start the app with development code by running ENV=production npm run start it can read the process.env.ENV variable beacause I'm adding this plugins to webpack dev config
new webpack.DefinePlugin({
'process.env':{
'ENV': JSON.stringify(process.env.ENV),
}
}),
I also add the script above to webpack prod config, but if I try this command after build ENV=prod serve -s build, it cannot read the environment variable
How to fix this?
If you set all the environment variables inside the app.config.js, you can replace them after the build in the main.????????.chunk.js file.
A sample app.config.js could look like:
export default {
SOME_URL: "https://${ENV_VAR_1}"
SOME_CONFIGURATION: "${ENV_VAR_2}",
}
Leave the app.config.js file as is, without replacing the environment variables with their actual values. Then, create the optimized production build:
npm ci # if not already installed
npm run build
If the default webpack configurations are used, the contents of app.config.js will be bundled in build/static/js/main.????????.chunk.js. The values of the environment variables can be be envsubst, with a bash script like this:
main_chunk=$(ls build/static/js/main.*.js)
envsubst <$main_chunk >./main_chunk_temp
cp ./main_chunk_temp $main_chunk
rm ./main_chunk_temp
Note: In the above example, envsubst reads the actual variables set in the environment at runtime and literally replaces ${ENV_VAR_1} and ${ENV_VAR_2} with them. So, you can only run this once as the chunk is being over-written.
The reason why you can not read the ENV var is because:
(1) In development mode webpack watches your files and bundles you app on the fly. It also will read (because of the DefinePlugin) your process.env.ENV and will add it as a global variable. So it is basically piping variables from process.env to your JS app.
(2) After you've build your app (with webpack) everything is already bundled up into one or more files. When you run serve you just start a HTTP server that serves the static build files. So there is no way to pipe the ENV to you app.
Basically what the DefinePlugin does is add a var to the bundle. E.g.
new webpack.DefinePlugin({
'token': '12356234ga5q3aesd'
})
will add a line similar to this:
var token = '12356234ga5q3aesd';
since the JS files is static there is no way to change this variable after you've build/bundled it with webpack. Basically, when you do npm run build you're creating the compiled binary/.dll/.jar/... file and can no longer influence its contents via the plugin.
You can add a .env file to the root of your project and define your environment variables there. That will be your default (production) environment variables definition. But then you can have a local file called .env.local to override values from the default.
When defining your environment variables, make sure they start with REACT_APP_ so your environment variable definitions would look like this:
REACT_APP_SERVER_URL=https://my-awesome-app.herokuapp.com
Also, add this to .gitignore so you don't commit your local overrides:
.env*.local
Reference:
Adding Development Environment Variables In .env (create-react-app)
From create-react-app documentation:
Your project can consume variables declared in your environment as if
they were declared locally in your JS files. By default you will have
NODE_ENV defined for you, and any other environment variables starting
with REACT_APP_.
You can read them from process.env inside your code:
render() {
return (
<div>
<small>You are running this application in <b>{process.env.NODE_ENV}</b> mode.</small>
<form>
<input type="hidden" defaultValue={process.env.REACT_APP_NOT_SECRET_CODE} />
</form>
</div>
);
}

Node JS, detect production environment

When I'm in dev mode I don't want my server to send email and some other stuff so I have this in server.js file:
process.env.NODE_ENV = 'development';
When I move it to production i change the value to 'production'.
Problem is of course that it is easy to forget on deployments. Is it possible somehow to detect when server is in production?
If it's not, is it possible to write a batch script that replaces a string in a file?
You shouldn't manually change values of process.env object, because this object is reflecting your execution environment.
In your code you should do the following:
const environment = process.env.NODE_ENV || 'development';
And then you launch your app in production like this:
$ NODE_ENV=production node app.js
If NODE_ENV environment variable is not set, then it will be set to development by default.
You could also use dotenv module in development to specify all environment variables in a file.
Furthermore, I've implemented a reusable module, which allows to automatically detect environment by analyzing both CLI arguments and NODE_ENV variable. This could be useful on your development machine, because you can easily change environment by passing a CLI argument to you Node.js program like this: $ node app.js --prod. It's also nice to use with Gulp: $ gulp build --prod.
Please see more details and use cases on the detect-environment's page.
The suggested way to tackle these kind of problems is by using the process global object provided by NodeJS. For example:
var env = process.env.NODE_ENV || "development";
By the above line. We can easily switch between development / production environment. If we haven't configured any environment variable it works with development environment.
process.env is an object that contains the user environment.
For example if we are running our application in a bash shell and have configured NODE_ENV to production. Then i can access that in node application as process.env.NODE_ENV.
There are multiple ways to define this NODE_ENV variable for nodejs applications:
## Setting environment variable for bash shell
export NODE_ENV=production
## Defined while starting the application
NODE_ENV=production node app.js
So i don't think you would require any batch file for this. When handling multiple configuration variables, follow this.
This is normally handled through configuration files (e.g. config frameworks like node-convict) and through environmental variables. In the start command in production, you might do something like:
NODE_ENV=production npm start
then the process.env.NODE_ENV would be properly set by any module in your app that cares.

node-webkit karma temporary environment variable

I am developing an app using node-webkit and for testing i use
https://github.com/mllrsohn/grunt-node-webkit-builder
However, it requires the presence of an environment variable named NODEWEBKIT_BIN.
Since i want my project to be runnable for anyone, i would like to set this environment variable temporarily, for the duration of the testing/building phase.
I have tried to see if this is possible using package.json but it is not (and it is also not recommended).
I have also tried to use package.json scripts to call a custom config.sh script wherein i use 'export' to export the environment variable. This has no use since the env. variable is only available in the terminal opened to run the script, and is no longer there when Karma starts the node-webkit 'browser'.
i have googled for karma set environment variable but that yields nothing useful as well.
Basically, is this even possible? Or should i just demand that anyone cloning my project
sets this environment variable?
[edit] i am currently looking into setting process.env.NODEWEBKIT_BIN directly inside the karma.conf.js file on the first line, it looks like it might just work.
Awesome, this works, for anyone wondering:
// temp set environment variable for node-webkit
process.env.NODEWEBKIT_BIN = '/Applications/node-webkit.app/Contents/MacOS/node-webkit';
module.exports = function(config){
config.set({
basePath : './',
files : [
...
'App/scripts/tests/**/*.js'
...
],
frameworks: ['jasmine'],
browsers : ['NodeWebkit'],
singleRun: true
});
};

Resources