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Ben Nadel at CFUNITED 2009 (Lansdowne, VA) with: Nathan Stanford and Nathan Stanford II
Ben Nadel at CFUNITED 2009 (Lansdowne, VA) with: Nathan Stanford Nathan Stanford II

Providing Environment Variables When Executing Node.js Program

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Lately, I've been trying to wrap my head around Node.js streams by reading through the Node.js source code. In the latest branch, I noticed that there were a lot of calls to debug(). And, when I looked at the source code for debug(), I noticed that it only ran when the environmental variables dictated debugging. And, after some Googling, I found out that you could define just-in-time environmental variables when executing a Node.js program. I didn't know that this was a feature of Unix; so, I thought I would help spread the good news.

In order to provide just-in-time environmental variables, you can define key-value pairs on the command line before you invoke the executable:

key1=value1 key2=value2 your-executable

To experiment with this in Node.js, I created a JavaScript file that outputs an environmental variable and logs a debug message, using various methods, depending on the environment:

// I log information to the console, if debugging is enabled. This is expecting to
// use either the console.log or the console.trace method.
debug = process.env.debug
	? console[ process.env.debug ]
	: function() { /* no-op. */ }
;

// Test environmental variable.
console.log( "Env( hello ): %s", process.env.hello );

// Trying debugging some information (behavior will change based on environment).
debug( "This is me debugging!" );

Notice that the debug() method, in my example, is always called; but, its output and behavior depends on the environmental variables. Now, let's try to call this Node.js program with various just-in-time environmental variables:

bens-imac:env ben$ node test.js
Env( hello ): undefined
.
bens-imac:env ben$ hello=world node test.js
Env( hello ): world
.
bens-imac:env ben$ hello=world debug=log node test.js
Env( hello ): world
This is me debugging!
.
bens-imac:env ben$ hello=world debug=trace node test.js
Env( hello ): world
Trace: This is me debugging!
. . . at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/ben/Sites/bennadel.com/testing/nodejs/env/test.js:18:1)
. . . at Module._compile (module.js:456:26)
. . . at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:474:10)
. . . at Module.load (module.js:356:32)
. . . at Function.Module._load (module.js:312:12)
. . . at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:497:10)
. . . at startup (node.js:119:16)
. . . at node.js:906:3

Notice that the key-value pairs, defined on the command line prior to the "node" executable, define just-in-time environmental variables.

This might be something that all of you command-line ninjas already knew. But, this seemed really cool to me. Plus, it will let me run those debug() methods in the Node.js source code when I upgrade to the latest branch.

Want to use code from this post? Check out the license.

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Ben Nadel