Load environment variables from a shell script

Question

I have a file with some environment variables that I want to use in a python script

The following works form the command line

$ source myFile.sh
$ python ./myScript.py

and from inside the python script I can access the variables like

import os
os.getenv('myvariable')

How can I source the shell script, then access the variables, from with the python script?

Answer 1

If you are saying backward environment propagation, sorry, you can't. It's a security issue. However, directly source environment from python is definitely valid. But it's more or less a manual process.

import subprocess as sp

SOURCE = 'your_file_path'
proc = sp.Popen(['bash', '-c', 'source {} && env'.format(SOURCE)], stdout=sp.PIPE)

source_env = {tup[0].strip(): tup[1].strip() for tup in map(lambda s: s.strip().split('=', 1), proc.stdout)}

Then you have everything you need in source_env.

If you need to write it back to your local environment (which is not recommended, since source_env keeps you clean):

import os

for k, v in source_env.items():
    os.environ[k] = v

---

Another tiny attention needs to be paid here, is since I called bash here, you should expect the rules are applied here too. So if you want your variable to be seen, you will need to export them.

export VAR1='see me'
VAR2='but not me'