React-native-config: Does this work with Expo?

[Yogu]

I'm stil using react-native-scripts and have not ejected, so I can't add custom gradle scripts. Should react-native-config still work, and do I need to set up something so that it works with the Expo app? I'm currently just getting an empty object for Config.

[solemidas]

@Yogu I get the same thing. It doesn't seem to be working.

[jdrydn]

Same result here. Since it requires react-native link react-native-config I don't think it'll ever work with Expo unless we eject from Expo 🤷‍♂️

For reference I got my .env to work with the following:

• Added babel-plugin-inline-dotenv to devDependencies:

$ npm install --save-dev babel-plugin-inline-dotenv

• Added inline-dotenv to .babelrc:

{
  "plugins": ["inline-dotenv"]
}

• Added a .env file:

HELLO_WORLD="Hello, world!"

• Finally added the environment variable:

<Text style={styles.getStartedText}>{process.env.HELLO_WORLD}</Text>

Only real caveat is the React Native packager needs to be restarted between .env changes, either the hot-reloading isn't watching .env or babel doesn't run between hot-loading. Either way I'm happy with that as I'll be using .env to override config options in my app 🎉

[fredrivett]

I've spent a couple of hours trying to get @jdrydn's solution above to work, and to no avail. Seems everyone else has managed to though, so no idea why it's not working for me.

• Starting the expo local server with exp start as needed for notification setup
• Have installed both babel-plugin-inline-dotenv and dotenv (and tried without dotenv installed too), both options haven't worked
• Have deleted node_modules and package_lock.json
• Have installed first with yarn, then removed and installed with npm
• Have tried adding inline-dotenv to .babelrc inside env.development as well as at the root
• Restarted the server and closed and re-opened Expo app at every turn

Current .babelrc:

{
  "presets": ["babel-preset-expo"],
  "env": {
    "development": {
      "plugins": ["transform-react-jsx-source","inline-dotenv"]
    }
  },
  "plugins": ["inline-dotenv"]
}

Are there any steps I'm missing that aren't listed above? I'm at the end of myself here, I just want to use environment variables I can't believe I've spent half a day on this and it still doesn't work 😞

EDIT: Wow ok, so outputting process.env will just have { "NODE_ENV": "development" } but outputting process.env.HELLO_WORLD works (though it didn't when I first tried out my setup)

Make sure to output the specific ENV var, not the whole process.env folks.

[mschipperheyn]

I ejected from Expo. It works on the Java side, but the Javascript Config object remains empty

[mschipperheyn]

Fixed it by adding resValue "string", "build_config_package", "host.exp.exponent" per the documentation.

[madox2]

inline-dotenv plugin is working for me as described above. However every time I change the .env file I have to restart server and clean the cache by passing -c flag (otherwise the configuration won't change):

yarn start -c