Support variable expansion in DotEnv features

[WoodyWoodsta]

What is the problem this feature will solve?

Sometimes it's helpful to derive the value of variables from other variables, using variable expansion.

For example, consider the following .env file:

APPLICATION_PORT: 8080
BASE_URL: http://localhost:8080

The APPLICATION_PORT and BASE_URL should have the same port. For reasons external to this issue, BASE_URL cannot be split into two variables without causing confusion.

If there are external overrides to APPLICATION_PORT, they won't remain in sync with BASE_URL.

What is the feature you are proposing to solve the problem?

Instead we could write .env files like this:

APPLICATION_PORT: 8080
BASE_URL: http://localhost:${APPLICATION_PORT}

This is already supported by at least bash, and the concept of variable expansion in environmental configuration is also common in ecosystems such as Kubernetes.

What alternatives have you considered?

• Using dotenvx
• Splitting variables up into their lowest common set