How do I use environment variables in Python?
I'm working on a little personal Python project and I'd like to store my API keys without hardcoding them. How do you normally go about loading environment variables? I'm using VS Code on Windows.
2 answers
The simplest way is to use the `os` module with `os.environ.get('YOUR_KEY')` to retrieve your variables. You can also install `python-dotenv` and create a `.env` file at the root of your project (with `API_KEY=your_key_here`), then do `from dotenv import load_dotenv` and `load_dotenv()` on startup - it's cleaner and you just need to add `.env` to your `.gitignore` so you don't commit it. On Windows with VS Code, it works exactly the same as anywhere else, you just gotta be careful to restart the terminal after modifying `.env` or the changes won't always load.
Pretty good answer above 👍 Just one more thing: if you're using `python-dotenv`, don't forget to add `.env` to your `.gitignore` or you'll accidentally push your API keys to GitHub and that's not great 😅
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