Get environment value in controller

Question

In my .env file I have the following:

IMAP_HOSTNAME_TEST=imap.gmail.com
IMAP_USERNAME_TEST=myemail@gmail.com
IMAP_PASSWORD_TEST=mypw

Now I

Answer 1

To simplify: Only configuration files can access environment variables - and then pass them on.

Step 1.) Add your variable to your .env file, for example,

EXAMPLE_URL="http://google.com"

Step 2.) Create a new file inside of the config folder, with any name, for example,

config/example.php

Step 3.) Inside of this new file, I add an array being returned, containing that environment variable.

 env('EXAMPLE_URL')
];

Step 4.) Because I named it "example", my configuration 'namespace' is now example. So now, in my controller I can access this variable with:

$url = \config('example.url');

Tip - if you add use Config; at the top of your controller, you don't need the backslash (which designates the root namespace). For example,

namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Config; // Added this line

class ExampleController extends Controller
{
    public function url() {
        return config('example.url');
    }
}

Finally, commit the changes:

php artisan config:cache

--- IMPORTANT --- Remember to enter php artisan config:cache into the console once you have created your example.php file. Configuration files and variables are cached, so if you make changes you need to flush that cache - the same applies to the .env file being changed / added to.