N00b question: How to set process.env?

[jsoverson]

N00b question: How to set process.env?

[mhulse]

Your grunt-env plugin looks like it will do the trick. Nice work! Looks useful.

Based on this info here, I was also able to setup a simple task:

grunt.registerTask('printenv', function () { console.log(process.env); });

Running grunt printenv showed me all the details.

I'd like to know how to setup NODE_ENV manually, and does that affect all node/grunt projects until I change it back again? I assume this is why you wrote grunt-env? 👍

[jsoverson]

process.env is the javascript representation of the environment variables set when node was first run. You can set these outside node by doing something like:

export MY_VAR="Hello World" && node -e 'console.log(process.env.MY_VAR)'

This is useful to set configuration and settings from other programs (or a task like grunt-env) and use them in your other grunt tasks.

[mhulse]

@jsoverson thanks so much for your quick reply and clarification/help, I really appreciate it!!!

I understand now. Thanks for the example code.

I'm currently setting up my project using grunt-preprocess and, now, grunt-env. I'm using both of your tasks as an alternative to something like usemin; I like usemin task, but it does way more than I'd prefer. Your task(s), IMHO, make my workflow less complicated and easier to understand (when compared to usemin).

Long story short, I needed to setup one "template" that gets copied into dev and prod folders, each with links to un-min and min files respectively. With your task, it's pretty easy to wrap <!-- @if NODE_ENV == 'production' --> or <!-- @if NODE_ENV == 'production' --> around blocks of HTML.

With that said, thanks a billion for the help and your awesome code, I really appreciate it! Keep up the excellent work!!! 👍

[jsoverson]

np, thanks for the feedback comments.