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Christopher Konopka
Christopher Konopka

Posted on • Edited on

Configuring environmental variables for Go with ~/.bash_profile

#go #bash #env

Before sharing a project that uses credentials, it is important to show a user how to save their credentials within the bash_profile. The reasoning for this is security, and it makes variables globally accessible within the architecture. The example is specifically for OSX and Linux.

Open the ~/.bash_profile using your favorite text editor using Terminal.

nano ~/.bash_profile
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Create a new variable and export it. Save and exit.

export API_KEY="KEY"
export API_SECRET="SECRET"
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Reload the variables using source.

source ~/.bash_profile
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Create a new Go program and name it main.js. Add the fmt and os libraries.

package main

import(
  "fmt"
  "os"
)

func main(){
    // ... code here
}
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Use the os library's Getenv function to retrieve the environmental variable and print them out.

APIkey := os.Getenv("API_KEY")
APIsecret := os.Getenv("API_SECRET")
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Print out the APIkey and APIsecret using fmt.

fmt.Println(APIkey, APIsecret)
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Top comments (1)

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arham_abiyan profile image
Arham Awal Abiyan • • Edited

Hello, I think you made a mistake about the file name here

Create a new Go program and name it main.js. Add the fmt and os libraries.

it should be main.go

very helpful post btw, thanks