Detailed documentation of the Container Env Python module.

get_environment()

get_environment (variable, default=None, encoding="utf-8")

Returns the value of an environment variable if it exists. If it does not exist and a {variable}_FILE variable exists, the content of the file it points to will be returned. If neither exist, it returns the supplied default argument.

Arguments

• name (str): Name of the environment variable based option.
• default (str): Default option, returned when the variable does not exist.
• encoding (str): Encoding used for reading files. See the Python documentation for the possible values.

Returns

str: Value of the environment variable, or content of {name}_FILE file.

Examples

Given an environment variable DATABASE_USER with the value my_awesome_app:

from container_env import get_environment
print(get_environment('DATABASE_USER'))

Produces the output:

my_awesome_app

Given a file /secrets/db_pass containing my_secret_password and an environment variable DATABASE_PASSWORD_FILE with the value /secrets/db_pass:

from container_env import get_environment
print(get_environment('DATABASE_PASSWORD'))

Produces the output:

my_secret_password