How to load .env file for different environments in python?

Question

I have three .env files for local, dev and prod environment and I have to load specific environments file while doing deployment for that server i.e If am doing DEV deployment then dev .env file should load all.

Answer 1

Short Answer You can use the pip module python-dotenv to load .env files.
Here's what you need to do:

from dotenv import load_dotenv
    
load_dotenv(some_path)

Now the vars in the .env file located at some_path can be used with os.getenv("VAR") or os.environ["VAR"]

Expanded answer(As proposed by @kevins comment)

You could use an extra environment variable to specify which .env file to use

import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv

env_file = os.environ["DOTENV_FILE"]
load_dotenv(env_file)

Running the script with DOTENV_FILE=local.env will then load local.env

Answer 2

Here is my solution how to handle loading different env files for different needs

import os
from pathlib import Path
from dotenv import load_dotenv

APP_ROOT = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__))
PROFILE_DIR = Path(APP_ROOT) / 'profile'
STORAGE_DIR = Path(APP_ROOT) / 'storage'

# add configurations here...

FLASK_ENV = os.getenv('FLASK_ENV') or 'development'

# define here environment config files you want to load
ENVIRONMENTS = {
    'development': '.env',
    'docker': '.env.docker',
}

dotenv_path = os.path.join(APP_ROOT, ENVIRONMENTS.get(FLASK_ENV) or '.env')

# Load Environment variables
load_dotenv(dotenv_path)