Environment variable returns nil

Question

Here's how I set my ENV variable

#~/repos/project
export GA_USERNAME="[email protected]"

When I try to use ENV['GA_USERNAME] in my application, it returns nil. However, in the console it strangely prints the variable and then returns nil...

1.9.2-p320 :003 > puts ENV['GA_USERNAME']
[email protected]
=> nil 

Edit I don't think my ENV variables are persisting. When I restart my computer, variable is nil and needs to be set again.

Answer 1

A traditional way to set env vars for a server process is:

RAILS_ENV=production GA_USERNAME=foobar rails s

If you want to specify the env vars in a persistent way, like in a file, try figaro. The README tells you how to start, but the idea is:

1. rails generate figaro:install
2. edit config/application.yml (which the last command created)
3. in your app, it will automatically set per-environment (production, development, test) variables

UPDATE

dotenv might be an even better and simpler approach:

1. gem 'dotenv-rails', :groups => [:development, :test]
2. put cross-environment key-value pairs in .env
3. put env-specific pairs .env.test or .env.development

See their README for all the details.