Play Framework Scala Environment Variables not found - scala

Question

Sup,
I'm trying to setup environment variables for my project in Play2.4 Scala.
I have set variables in run configuration in Intellij.
What's annoying Scala doesn't seem to see those.
I keep getting errors of configuration not specified for keys I used env variables.
When i start the application those shows in the console:
"C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_25\bin\java" -Dfile.encoding=UTF8 -DMAIL_PORT=587 -DDB_URI=mongodb://uri -Djline.terminal=none -Dsbt.log.noformat=true -Dsbt.global.base=C:\Users\Haito\AppData\Local\Temp\sbt-global-plugin7stub -Xms512M -Xmx1024M -Xss1M -XX:+CMSClassUnloadingEnabled -XX:MaxPermSize=256M -classpath C:\Users\Haito\.IntelliJIdea14\config\plugins\Scala\launcher\sbt-launch.jar xsbt.boot.Boot "project root" ~run
And the configuration file:
mongodb.uri = ${?DB_URI}
play.mailer {
host=${?MAIL_HOST}
port=${?MAIL_PORT}
ssl=false
tls=true
user=${?MAIL_USERNAME}
password=${?MAIL_PASSWD}
debug=false
mock=false
}
And i keep getting those:
Missing configuration key 'mongodb.db'!
Of course my problem is not that my mongo driver. My problem is that the config is not being fed with environment variables. Mailer which also uses environment variables for configs. When I paste the actual URI except the ${?DB_URI} it works.
Build:
resolvers += "scalaz-bintray" at "http://dl.bintray.com/scalaz/releases"
resolvers += "Sonatype Snapshots" at "https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots/"
libraryDependencies ++= Seq(
"org.reactivemongo" %% "play2-reactivemongo" % "0.11.2.play24"
)
libraryDependencies ++= Seq(
"com.typesafe.play" %% "play-mailer" % "3.0.1"
)

Answer 1

This is a bug in IntelliJ. Setting the "Environment variables" field in the Play run configuration sets system properties, not environment variables.
If you configure environment variables manually somewhere like .bash_profile then you can certainly use them in your application.conf like:
db.default.url = ${?DB_URL}

Answer 2

When i start the application those shows in the console:
"C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_25\bin\java" -Dfile.encoding=UTF8 -DMAIL_PORT=587 -DDB_URI=mongodb://uri -Djline.terminal=none -Dsbt.log.noformat=true -Dsbt.global.base=C:\Users\Haito\AppData\Local\Temp\sbt-global-plugin7stub -Xms512M -Xmx1024M -Xss1M -XX:+CMSClassUnloadingEnabled -XX:MaxPermSize=256M -classpath C:\Users\Haito\.IntelliJIdea14\config\plugins\Scala\launcher\sbt-launch.jar xsbt.boot.Boot "project root" ~run
-D doesn't set environment variables, it sets JVM system properties. You should be able to set environment variables from the run configuration as well, but a different part of the dialog.
Also, Play's documentation doesn't say it looks at environment variables at all:
As well as the application.conf file, configuration comes from a couple of other places.
Default settings are loaded from any reference.conf files found on the classpath. Most Play JARs include a reference.conf file with default settings. Settings in application.conf will override settings in reference.conf files.
It’s also possible to set configuration using system properties. System properties override application.conf settings.
I.e. passing -Dmongodb.uri=... should work.
Later on it does say
For substitutions which are not found in the configuration tree, implementations may try to resolve them by looking at system environment variables or other external sources of configuration. (More detail on environment variables in a later section.)
but this is just a quote from HOCON README.
You need to looks at the code loading the config to check if it does use one of the methods which include environment variables.

Answer 3

If your mongodb url contains parameters like mongodb://xxxxxxxxxx?key=value then intellij will silently remove that env variable.