node multiline process.env (with and without) dotenv

Question

I have this env variable:

export MyEnvVar="new\nline"

If I run the command "echo -ne $MyEnvVar" on a Mac terminal this is what I get:

new
line

When I run the following code:

require("dotenv").config();
console.log("new\nline");
console.log("");
console.log("");
console.log(process.env.MyEnvVar);

The output:

new

line

new\nline

How can I get process.env.MyEnvVar to have multiline instead of escaping it?

dotenv documentation says it support multi-line vars. https://www.npmjs.com/package/dotenv

Answer 1

The dotenv library supports new lines. If you use double quotes and the new line character (\n) then the new line character will create a new line.

Example in .env file:

SERVER_KEY = "abc\nefg"

will become:

abc
efg