'How to read an environment variable in Kotlin?

I'd like to get a certain value from an environment variable in my Kotlin app, but I can't find anything about reading environment variables in the core libraries documentation.

I'd expect it to be under kotlin.system but there's really not that much there.



Solution 1:[1]

It is really easy to get a environment value if it exists or a default value by using the elvis operator in kotlin:

var envVar: String = System.getenv("varname") ?: "default_value"

Solution 2:[2]

You could always go down this approach:

val envVar : String? = System.getenv("varname")

Though, to be fair, this doesn't feel particularly idiomatic, as you're leveraging Java's System class, not Kotlin's.

Solution 3:[3]

And if you want to handle env var which do exists but is empty:

val myEnv = (System.getenv("MY_ENV") ?: "").ifEmpty { "default_value" }

(see edit history for previos versions)

Solution 4:[4]

You can use the kotlin extension Konfig

Konfig - A Type Safe Configuration API for Kotlin

Konfig provides an extensible, type-safe API for configuration properties gathered from multiple sources — built in resources, system properties, property files, environment variables, command-line arguments, etc.

For example: Key("http.port", intType)

Sources

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Source: Stack Overflow

Solution Source
Solution 1 Patrick Boos
Solution 2
Solution 3
Solution 4