return from load functionality

[designermonkey]

Just a question more than anything...

Would it not be better to return the parsed array of key -> value pairs from the load function instead of an array of strings? I'm sure there would be a ton more functionality use cases that would handle an array over the strings?

[GrahamCampbell]

Yes, perhaps. We're open to PRs. :)

[GrahamCampbell]

I've actually made this change in #306, so that load returns an associative array mapping the environment variable names from the file to their values.

[GrahamCampbell]

@designermonkey Please let me know if the implementation in V3 does what you need.

It's also possible to get the variables and their values from a dotenv file in isolation too (from V3.2+).

---

Example 1

The following example assumes $path is the full path of the directory containing your .env file.

This example will load the .env file, returning the variables, AND will have the side effect of mutating your environment.

<?php

use Dotenv\Dotenv;

$dotenv = Dotenv::create($path);

$variables = $dotenv->load();

---

EXAMPLE 2

The following example assumes $path is the full path of the directory containing your .env file.

This example will load the .env file, returning the variables, BUT will not mutate your current environment. This is because, in example 1, the default factory was used, so the adapters that mess with your actual environment are used.

<?php

use Dotenv\Environment\Adapter\ArrayAdapter;
use Dotenv\Environment\DotenvFactory;
use Dotenv\Dotenv;

$dotenv = Dotenv::create($path, null, new DotenvFactory([new ArrayAdapter()]));

$variables = $dotenv->load();

---

EXAMPLE 3

The following example assumes $content contains the actual content of your env file:

Once again, this example will not mutate your actual environment, allowing you to inspect the contents of an env file in isolation.

<?php

use Dotenv\Environment\Adapter\ArrayAdapter;
use Dotenv\Environment\DotenvFactory;
use Dotenv\Loader;

$loader = new Loader([], new DotenvFactory([new ArrayAdapter()]));

$variables = $loader->loadDirect($content));