Setup Multiple Environment for Laravel 5 Developers Way

laravel-multiple-env-setup.php

<?php

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Follow this instructions:
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Laravel takes a dead simple approach to your application environments
| so you can just specify a machine name for the host that matches a
| given environment, then we will automatically detect it for you.
|
| 1. Check if you have .env file (it should be automatically created by laravel)
|
| REMOVE all the contents from here, and just put: local or production
| (whatever environment you want). This will be the one that will be 
| changed when you want to switch to another environment. :D
|
| 2. Create new Environment file let say you have your local and production enviroment.
|
| Create a file with the name of: .local.env
| Create a file with the name of: .production.env
|
| 3. Add default environment value.
|
| For Local Environment (.local.env file)
| APP_ENV=local
|
| For Production Environment (.production.env file)
| APP_ENV=production
|
| 4. Create new php file and named it, environment.php, save it into this folder: app/bootstrap/environment.php
| – Inside of this file we will do the magic. Insert this snippet code.
*/

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Detect The Application Environment
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Laravel takes a dead simple approach to your application environments
| so you can just specify a machine name for the host that matches a
| given environment, then we will automatically detect it for you.
|
*/

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(function(){
    $environmentPath = __DIR__.'/../.env';
    $setEnv = trim(file_get_contents($environmentPath));
    if (file_exists($environmentPath))
    {
        putenv("APP_ENV=$setEnv");
        if (getenv('APP_ENV') && file_exists(__DIR__.'/../.' .getenv('APP_ENV') .'.env')) {
            Dotenv::load(__DIR__ . '/../', '.' . getenv('APP_ENV') . '.env');
        } 
    }
});

/*
|
| 5. This snippet code, use, putenv php function to set APP_ENV and then using
| the Dotenv package by vlucas. I’m loading the file that we created and
| base on the .env file we can determine which environment should we use.
| 
| 6. Include your environment.php file in bootstrap file. Paste it inside your
| bootstrap/app.php file.
|
*/


/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Load Environment File on Startup
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| This will determine, which environment will be loaded for our application.
|
*/
require __DIR__.'/environment.php';
// 6. After that you can check which environment is being loaded using:

App::environment()
// 7. I output the current environment in my Laravel 5 Welcome Page, You can see my screenshots below:

For the next person wondering that, the documentation exists and you can read this: https://github.com/vlucas/phpdotenv#immutability-and-repository-customization

This works for me on Laravel V8

<?php
use Dotenv\Dotenv;

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(function(){
    $environmentPath = __DIR__.'/../.env';
    
    if (file_exists($environmentPath))
    {
        $setEnv = trim(file_get_contents($environmentPath));
        putenv('APP_ENV='.$setEnv);
        $dotenv = Dotenv::createImmutable(__DIR__ . '/../', '.' . getenv('APP_ENV') . '.env');
        $dotenv->load(); //this is important
    }
});

In Laravel 10, at the end of bootstrap/app.php I did this to include an ADDITIONAL .env file that I wanted to use

$app->afterLoadingEnvironment(function (Illuminate\Foundation\Application $app) {
    Dotenv::create(Env::getRepository(), $app->environmentPath(), '.env-overrides')
        ->safeLoad();
});