CHANGELOG.md

Changelog

v1.0.1

Added

• Load
  • Dotenv no longer autoload the .env file on creating a new instance by default.
  • To load the .env file on creating new instance, you now need to pass the second argument as true when instantiating the class.
  • You can now manually load the .env file by calling the load() method.
  • load() method return Dotenv class.
  • Add new method getInGroup(string $group),

// if you set your environment variables in group like this,
APP_URL='https://example.com/'
APP_KEY=1234567

// You can use `getInGroup` method to retrieve all of that same group variables,
$dotenv->getInGroup('APP');

// Output
array(2) {
    [0] =>
    string(7) "APP_URL"
    [1] =>
    string(7) "APP_KEY"
}

• Remove deleted variables
  • This includes removing deleted environment variables from $_SERVER, $_ENV, and getenv().

v1.0.2

Changes

• Remove env variables manually set process.
• Dotenv now accept 2 parameters, array|string $file & string $path
• Dotenv will load default defined env files if user pass nothing to $file

// Change method name

// from
$dotenv->getInGroup('APP');
// to
$dotenv->group('APP');

// from
$dotenv->restart();
// to
$dotenv->reload(); // Reload no longer accept default values

v1.0.3

Changes

• replace file() with fopen() for improved performance when reading env files
• The constructor now accepts three parameters:
  • array|string|null $file
  • string|null $envKey
  • bool $overwrite
• improved load method:
  • On production mode, env files are loaded only once (for performance)

Added

• New method has() to check for the existence of an env variable:

$dotenv->has('APP_LOCALE');

• You can now control whether to overwrite existing environment variables when loading multiple env files, via the $overwrite parameter.

v2.0.0

🚀 Added

• JSON File Support — Load environment variables from structured .json files.
• Custom Loader Registry — Add support for user-defined loaders (e.g., YAML, XML).
• Static Access — Access env values directly using Env::get() or Env::group().
• Safe Loading — Use safeLoad() to avoid exceptions on missing or malformed files.
• Multiple File Support — Load multiple .env and .json files in defined order.
• Caching — Enable in-memory caching for performance using cache: true.
• LoaderRegistry — Convention-based class resolution for parsers like JsonParser.

🛠️ Changed

• Env::create() no longer loads .env by default — use ->load() explicitly.
• Parser resolution now follows a naming convention (JsonParser, YamlParser, etc.).
• Parser must implement ParserInterface and be registered for custom loaders.

⚠️ Breaking Changes

• The legacy $dotenv = new Dotenv(...)->load() style is replaced by Env::create(...)->load().
• Parser resolution and loader registration are now required for custom file formats.

✅ Internal Improvements

• Improved performance by using fopen() instead of file() for reading files.
• Cleaner architecture with BaseLoader, LoaderInterface, and LoaderRegistry.