datahihi1/tiny-env

A simple environment variable loader for PHP applications

1.0.17 2026-04-08 13:54 UTC

Requires

• php: >=7.1

Suggests

• datahihi1/tiny-env-encryptor: Encryption helpers for tiny-env: encrypt and decrypt .env values
• datahihi1/tiny-env-validator: Validation helpers for tiny-env: rules and helpers to validate .env values

MIT

• datahihi1

README

A lightweight .env loader for PHP projects.

Fast, Safe, Simple — designed for small to medium projects.

Installation

composer require datahihi1/tiny-env:1.0.17

Quick Start

require 'vendor/autoload.php';

use Datahihi1\TinyEnv\TinyEnv;

$env = new TinyEnv(__DIR__);
$env->load();

echo env('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

.env file:

DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306

Features

1. load() – Standard load

$env->load();                           // Load all
$env->load(specificKeys: ['DB_HOST']);  // Load specific keys
$env->load([], forceReload: true);      // Force reload (overwrite existing values)
$env->load([], noFile: true);           // Load without requiring .env file to exist

2. Fast load

$env = new TinyEnv(__DIR__, true); // Load immediately and populate $_SERVER|$_ENV but only .env and not recommended for production

3. Multiple .env files

$env->envfiles(['.env', '.env.local', '.env.production']); // Load in order, later files override earlier ones, not work with fastLoad

Allow specific stream wrappers (advanced)

By default, TinyEnv rejects some values that look like dangerous PHP stream wrappers (e.g. phar:, php://, data:) to reduce the chance that an env value is later used unsafely by your app.

If you intentionally need to use a wrapper such as phar://..., you can opt-in with an allowlist:

$env = new TinyEnv(__DIR__);
$env->allowWrapperSchemes(['phar']); // opt-in to allow phar://... values
$env->load();

Populate Superglobals

$env = new TinyEnv(__DIR__); // By default, superglobals are NOT populated to avoid unintended side effects. You can enable it explicitly:
$env->populateSuperglobals(); // Enable superglobals population
$env->populateServerglobals(); // Enable server globals population
$env->load();

Or use fastLoad which will always populate superglobals - But not recommended for production.

• Getting Values

echo env('NAME');                // Get value
echo env('NOT_FOUND', 'backup'); // With default
print_r(env());                  // Get all (in .env file)
print_r(s_env());                // Get all converted to string
print_r(sysenv());               // Get all system variables

• Validation

Using tiny-env-validator

• Encryption

Using tiny-env-encryptor

Variable Interpolation

TinyEnv supports shell-style interpolation inside .env values:

DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PORT=3306
DB_URL=${DB_HOST}:${DB_PORT}

USER_NAME=
USER=${USER_NAME:-guest}   # default if unset or empty
ALT_USER=${USER_NAME-guest} # default if unset only
REQUIRED=${MISSING?Missing variable MISSING}

Result:

DB_URL = "localhost:3306"

USER = "guest" (because USER_NAME is empty)

ALT_USER = "" (because USER_NAME exists but empty)

REQUIRED → throws Exception

Notes

• Comments start with #.
• Variable names: A-Z, 0-9, _.
• Spaces around = still valid but not recommended.
• Values are auto-parsed into correct types:
  • "true", "yes", "on" → true
  • "false", "no", "off" → false
  • "123" → int
  • "12.3" → float or double
  • "null" or empty → null
• TinyEnv considers yes/no, on/off to be boolean values.
• Use "/value/" to force string type.