Add support for dotenv

[remcohaszing]

The dotenv format uses subset of the bourne shell syntax to define key-value pairs.

# This is a comment
SOME_VARIABLE=some value  # Another comment
another_variable="A value in a quoted string"
YET_another_variable='A value with a # sign in it'

Unlike other languages, files of this type are not recognizable by a name suffix (file extension). Instead, these files are typically recognizable by a name prefix. Some popular file names include:

• .env
• .env.development
• .env.production
• .env.test
• .env.local
• .env.development.local
• .env.production.local
• .env.test.local
• .flaskenv
• user-dirs.dirs

This format is supported by many popular environments, including the Node.js, Next.js, Flask, and the XDG user dir specification.

There are two popular existing Dotenv extensions:

• DotENV
• Dotenv Official +Vault

The most popular is DotENV. It doesn’t specify the correct file patterns. Instead, it defines extensions. This extension was last updated 7 years ago.

The extension Dotenv Official +Vault looks more official. It has the same problem as DotENV, but additionally it writes to user settings as a workaround. This is solved by dotenv-org/dotenv-vscode#105, but this has gone unnoticed for over a year.

Both projects appear to be unmaintained. Given how commonly dotenv files are used, I think it would be good to include basic dotenv support in VSCode as a builtin extension.

[remcohaszing]

Also I would love to contribute this if it’s accepted.

[lszomoru]

@remcohaszing, could you elaborate more on what you mean by "support for dotenv"?

[remcohaszing]

I mean very basic language support, meaning:

• Register the dotenv language ID
• Add some well-known file patterns
• Add a TextMate grammar
• Add a basic language configuration to support toggling line comments

No advanced features such as a language server.

[vs-code-engineering]

This feature request is now a candidate for our backlog. The community has 60 days to upvote the issue. If it receives 20 upvotes we will move it to our backlog. If not, we will close it. To learn more about how we handle feature requests, please see our documentation.

Happy Coding!

[vs-code-engineering]

🙂 This feature request received a sufficient number of community upvotes and we moved it to our backlog. To learn more about how we handle feature requests, please see our documentation.

Happy Coding!