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Let's talk about environment variables in Node.js.

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What is it?

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Why do we need it and how to use it?

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The first question is what is an environment variable?

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Environment variable.

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In node, I use to store sensitive data such as API credentials or keys or passwords and any other information

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that shouldn't be directly written inside your code.

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So why do we need it?

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The key point is about security.

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So looking inside our project where we are not protecting our code is inside the config and that is

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our function to connect to MongoDB and the code that is more secured is our MongoDB connection string.

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Let's say that if we push our project to get help and any user can have access to our code and if that

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user have access to our MongoDB connection string, that user can perform some operations, such as

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dropping our entire database, deleting error code, updating and performing all the crowd operations

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of which we are not even aware of.

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That is why we need to protect it.

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So how can we use it?

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The first step is to create a file with extension called Dot E and V, and that is what we did in the

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previous video.

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Depending on the nature of your application, you might have multiple dot E and V or environment variable

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one for production and one for development.

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We can say that this one is for development purposes and we can have one for production or we can have

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one file called E and V, and inside the file we can create two MongoDB connection string one for development

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as dev and one for production.

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And we can use the connection string depending on the environment that we are on.

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So how can we make use of it?

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The main logic here is that we are putting this one inside the internals of Node.js and we can have

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access to this inside what is called process Dot E and V.

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So let's see if we're going to have that one.

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Let's get back to the connection function here and inside here let's console.log what is called process

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dot envy.

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This method was given to us by Node.js.

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So let me check the terminal and let's see what we have.

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And these are the environment being used inside our application.

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We have the shell, the program that we are using and other properties, but what we want is what we

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call our MongoDB connection string.

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And you can see that we don't have it here.

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What we are expecting is this variable here.

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What you put in here will be available on the process dot E and V, but we don't have it by default.

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Node.js will not populate or add this variable inside the process of E and V unless we install a different

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package to get it done.

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So let me shut down the terminal and play as well.

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And we are going to install a package called Dot Envy.

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Again, the purpose for this package is it's going to help us to have this variable inside the process

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of EMV.

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So now after installing, let me clear and then restart the server.

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After installing.

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Let's make use of it.

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Let's get back to the server JS file.

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This is our entry point and you need to require the dot E and V before other packages because we may

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need the environment variables before even our application run.

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So here we to make use of cost.

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Darts.

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E and V is equal to require the package as dot E and V.

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And on that we have a method called config.

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So I'm going to make use of dot envy, dot config, save it and let's restart our server.

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Make sure any time you make changes to the environment variable you need to restart the server.

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So let me restart it manually.

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And if you look through, you can see that there is no way to be found for the mongo you are.

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What is the problem?

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The problem is about the arrangement.

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So looking at our code, we are calling the function to connect before calling the environment variable.

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So by the time this function got run, there is no variable called mongo.

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You are on the process.

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That is why we don't have it here.

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So if I bring this one before the function to connect.

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Now let's check our terminal and here we go.

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You can see that we have a variable called Mongo.

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You are L and this is the value.

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And for this one we have this short way of coordinates so I can remove this one.

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And remove the variable here.

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Remember, required is a function so I can change what is called config.

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And that is it.

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Save it.

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And let's check our terminal.

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And you can see that we have it as well.

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So now we can make use of this one.

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So now let's get back to our DB connection function here and I'm going to remove this one and make use

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of process dot e and v dot mongo u are.

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And now let's check our terminal.

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And you can see DB connected successfully.

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So as you move on, we are going to put any code, for example API, key cloud, binary and many more

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inside this file.

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All right, let's continue in the next video.