# Bash - Loading environment variables from a file > Learn how to load environment variables from a .env file into a Bash script, so you can externalize configuration and reuse variables across other applications like Laravel. ---  **TL;DR** This article shows the correct way to load a `.env` file's variables into a Bash script's environment: `set -o allexport; source .env; set +o allexport`, which handles values containing spaces correctly — unlike the common but unreliable `export $(... | xargs)` pattern. Imagine you have a `.env` file like this one and you wish to process that file in a Bash script. **.env** ``` DOCKER_GIT_USEREMAIL="christophe@me.com" DOCKER_GIT_FULLNAME="Christophe Avonture" DOCKER_GIT_USERNAME="Me and myself" ``` Using a configuration file will enable you to externalize the management of your constants, as well as reuse variables from another application, such as a site developed in Laravel. Let's take a look at how to do this as correctly as possible. The snippet comes from You can load that file easily in your environment using the following instructions: ```bash set -o allexport source .env set +o allexport ``` This done, variables will be accessible like any environment variables in your bash script. When the script exits, the added variables are removed (just like in a sub-shell). Using source is the best solution to avoid problems with f.i. spaces like in *Me and myself* i.e. using other solutions like `export $(... | xargs)` will always give unpredictable results. To illustrate this, simply create a file called f.i. `test.sh` with this content: **test.sh** ```bash #!/usr/bin/env bash set -o allexport source .env set +o allexport echo "${DOCKER_GIT_FULLNAME} (${DOCKER_GIT_USEREMAIL})" ``` Using the `.env` file provided here above, we'll obtain this output: ```bash $ ./test.sh Christophe Avonture (christophe@me.com) ``` This is, I think, the best and, too, the easiest way to use an external file to store configuration items in Bash. Two more `.env` companions from this blog: [Compare environment files in the Linux console](/blog/compare-env-files-cli), to spot the key you forgot to report from `.env.example`, and [Batch edit of environment file](/blog/update-env-files-cli), to change the same variable in a dozen projects at once.