env-create/README.md

Read in a .env.json file that contains valid JSON and assign top level properties to environment variables

# env-create

Reads in a valid JSON file and creates environment variables for every top level object found in the resulting object, **unless** an environment variable of that name already exists. It will not overwrite existing environment variables. It will only create environment variables for the top level objects.  

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## Installation  

`npm i env-create --save`  
Although at this point you should have made `--save` your default

## Basic usage

Let's assume you have a `.env.json` at the root level of your project with the following contents

```JSON
{
  "secret1": {
      "client_id": "123445",
  },
  "secret2": {
    "access_token": "reallylongtoken",
  },
}
```

Somewhere early in your code before you need the environment variables you add  

```javascript
require('env-create').load() 
const firstSecret = JSON.parse(process.env.secret1);
const secondSecret = JSON.parse(process.env.secret2);
```

The `load()` method will create a process environment variable for every top level object in the the default `.env.json` file located at the root of your project. The `load()` method optionally takes a JSON object with properties for `path`, and `encoding`. Both properties are optional.  The function returns an array of messages. If an environment variable already existed and would have been overwritten there were will be a message letting you know that.

## Option usage

Using a relative path to go up one folder out of your project and into an ENV_VARS folder to get the file named `gsweet.env.json`

```javascript
require('env-create').load({
    path: "../ENV_VARS/gsweet.env.json", 
    encode: "utf8"))  
const firstSecret = JSON.parse(process.env.secret1);
const secondSecret = JSON.parse(process.env.secret2);
```

You can also use an absolute path which is likely preferred if you store authentication data that is required among multiple projects

```javascript
const result = require('env-create').load({
  path: "/User/yourUserName/ENV_VARS/gsweet.env.json",
  encode: "utf8"))
```

## Acknowledgement

Inspired by [dotenv](https://github.com/motdotla/dotenv)