EnvHelper

Using system variables is good practice, and env helper helps you practice it.

Installation

The package can be installed from hex.pm:

1. Add env_helper to your list of dependencies in mix.exs:

   def deps do [{:env_helper, "~> 0.0.1"}] end

Usage

Create a module to keep your settings in, and then call the system_env/2 macro with the name of the environment variable you want to use as a lowercase atom, and the value you want to be the default as a string. For example:

defmodule Settings
  import EnvHelper
  system_env(:base_url, "localhost:9000")
end

This maps the method Settings.base_url to the system environment variable BASE_URL, or to the default value if the environment variable is not set.

Some settings might need to be integer values in your code, but will be strings when read from the environment helper. In such cases you can use the :string_to_integer flag:

system_env(:port, 9876, :string_to_integer)

Which will ensure that PORT environment variable will be interpreted as an integer.