Give access to .env environment variables file within your iOS projects.

dotenv-ios is a simple CLI tool you can run on each XCode build to inject environment variables into your iOS app. This tool was inspired by the twelve-factor app to make environmental changes in your app simple.

Note: At this time, only Swift is supported.

• Install this tool:

gem install dotenv-ios

• In the root of your iOS project, create a .env file and store all of the environment variables you wish inside. (Make sure to add this file to your .gitignore to avoid checking it into source control!)

• In your iOS app's source code, reference environment variables that you want to use:

let apiHost: String = Env.apiHost

At first, XCode will complain that Env.apiHost cannot be found. Don't worry. We will be fixing that. dotenv-ios CLI crawls your source code looking for Env.X requests and generating a Env.swift file for you! Anytime you want to use environmental variables, you just need to add it to your source. Super easy.

• Create a new Build Phase in XCode to run this command. Reorder the new Build Phase to be first to run. That way this tool can generate the environment variables before XCode tries to compile your app's source code.

First, create a bash script in your project (for example purposes here, we created a script named, dot_env_ios.rb in the root of the project. It's important to put it there so dotenv-ios can find the .env file in the root):

#!/usr/bin/env ruby   

require 'dotenv'
Dotenv.load('.env')

`bundle exec dotenv-ios --source #{ENV["SOURCE_CODE_DIRECTORY"]}`

You will notice above that I am also using the dotenv ruby gem to make life even easier storing a variable SOURCE_CODE_DIRECTORY in .env I can use in this script.

Now, back to XCode build scripts. Leave the shell as the default, /bin/sh and have the script in XCode simply execute your bash script you just made:

./dot_env_ios.rb

Done!

Note: It's highly recommended you checkout this quick doc on how to run ruby scripts within XCode as you may encounter issues along the way.

• Run a build in XCode (Cmd + B) to run the dotenv-ios CLI tool.

• Add the newly generated PathToYourSourceCode/Env.swift file to your XCode project.

• Done!

$> bundle install

You're ready to start developing!

This gem is setup automatically to deploy to RubyGems on a git tag deployment.

• Add RUBYGEMS_KEY secret to Travis-CI's settings.
• Make a new git tag, push it up to GitHub. Travis will deploy for you.

• Levi Bostian - GitHub, Twitter, Website/blog

dotenv-ios is open for pull requests. Check out the list of issues for tasks I am planning on working on. Check them out if you wish to contribute in that way.

Want to add features? Before you decide to take a bunch of time and add functionality to the library, please, [create an issue] (https://github.com/levibostian/dotenv-ios/issues/new) stating what you wish to add. This might save you some time in case your purpose does not fit well in the use cases of this project.