EnvConf

EnvConf is a Go package, for parsing configuration values from different sources.

Installing

go get github.com/antonmashko/envconf

Parse Configs

Usually you need a tag with desire configuration sources and execution of a single function envconf.Parse for getting all configuration values into your golang structure.

Supported Configurations

• command line flags
• environment variables
• default values
• external sources (can be anything that is implementing interface External)

Tags

Use tags for getting values from different configuration sources.

• flag - name of flag;
• env - name of environment variable;
• default - if nothing set this value will be used as field value;
• required - on true checks that configuration exists in flag or env source;
• description - field description in help output.
• envconf - only for structs. override struct name for generating configuration name.

Supported Types

1. Primitives: bool, string, all types of int and unit, float32, float64, complex64, complex128;
2. Collections:
   • Array and Slice - comma-separated string can be converted into slice or array. NOTE: if elements in string more than len of array EnvConf will panic with index out of range.
   • Map - comma-separated string with a colon-separated key and value can be converted into map. example input: key1:value1, key2:value2
3. Golang types:
   • time.Duration;
   • time.Time - using time.RFC3339 as a time.Parse layout argument;
   • net.IP;
   • url.URL;

Example

Let's take a look at a simple example. Here we're creating struct with 3 tags for different configuration sources: flag, env, and default value. NOTE: It's not necessary to specify tags for each configuration type, add desired only

package main

import (
	"fmt"

	"github.com/antonmashko/envconf"
)

type Example struct {
	Field1 string `flag:"flag-name" env:"ENV_VAR_NAME" default:"default-value"`
}

func main() {
	var cfg Example
	if err := envconf.Parse(&cfg); err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	fmt.Printf("%#v\n", cfg)
}

Testing! If you want to get set Field1 from command line flag, use flag name that is set in flag tag.

$ go run main.go -flag-name="variable-from-flag"
main.Example{Field1:"variable-from-flag"}

The same result would be for other configuration types.

-help output

Using envconf will also generate help output with all registered fields and types. Use flag -help or -h for getting it.

$ go run main.go -help

Usage:

Field1 <string> default-value
        flag: flag-name
        environment variable: ENV_VAR_NAME
        required: false
        description: ""

Auto-generating Config Names

EnvConf can generate environment variable name or flag name from golang field path. All you need is to set * in specific tag. For environment variables name envconf will use field path in uppercase and underscore as a delimiter. Example:

type Config struct {
	HTTP struct {
		Addr string `env:"*"`
	}
}

Now we can use HTTP_ADDR environment variable for defining Addr field. The same approach will work for flag. But flag names will be generated in lowercase and the dash will be as a delimiter.

Overriding Parent struct name for Auto-generation

In case if parent struct name doesn't satisfy for configuration variable name, it can be changed with envconf tag. Example:

type Config struct {
	HTTP struct {
		Addr string `env:"*"`
	} `envconf:"httpserver"`
}

Now we'll get HTTPSERVER_ADDR as environment variable name. See: EnvConf example

Configuration Priority

Priority:

1) Flag 
2) Environment variable 
3) External source
4) Default value