Access environment variables in production build Angular 4

Question

I want to deploy a production build of angular app with a configurable api url for the user to test it out. I use the environment.ts but after the production build, I do not

Answer 1

The environment*.ts file contain build time configurations, which you cannot change after the build. If you need to change your configuration after the build, you need to put them in a different place and retrieve them dynamically when the application starts

What you can do is:

Step #1: put your json configuration files under src/assets/config/[envName].json.

Note: it has to be json format, not ts format

Step #2: Add a new config service

import {Inject, Injectable} from '@angular/core';
import {HttpClient} from "@angular/common/http";
import {Observable} from 'rxjs/Rx';
import {environment} from "../../environments/environment";

/**
 * Declaration of config class
 */
export class AppConfig
{
//Your properties here
  readonly production: boolean;
  readonly name: string;

  readonly apiBaseUrl: string;

}

/**
 * Global variable containing actual config to use. Initialised via ajax call
 */
export let APP_CONFIG: AppConfig;

/**
 * Service in charge of dynamically initialising configuration
 */
@Injectable()
export class AppConfigService
{

  constructor(private http: HttpClient)
  {
  }

  public load()
  {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {

      let confName = environment.name + '.json';
      this.http.get('/assets/config/' + confName).map(res => res as any).catch((error: any): any => {
        reject(true);
        return Observable.throw('Server error');
      }).subscribe((envResponse :any) => {
        let t = new AppConfig();
        //Modify envResponse here if needed (e.g. to ajust parameters for https,...)
        APP_CONFIG = Object.assign(t, envResponse);
        resolve(true);
      });

    });
  }
}

Step #3: In your main module, add this before declaring the module

/**
* Exported function so that it works with AOT
* @param {AppConfigService} configService
* @returns {Function}
*/
export function loadConfigService(configService: AppConfigService): Function 

{
  return () => { return configService.load() }; 
}

Step #4: Modify the module providers to add this providers: [ …

  AppConfigService,
  { provide: APP_INITIALIZER, useFactory: loadConfigService , deps: [AppConfigService], multi: true },


],

Step 5: In your code, instead of using environment.configXXX, use this

import {APP_CONFIG} from "../services/app-config.service";

//…
return APP_CONFIG.configXXX;

This is a simplified example, you'll actually need to make some changes if you use angular universal as you need to have absolute urls when making an http call