docker-compose doesn't detect .env file with -f option

Question

I'm using a makefile to build my project and this is my file hierarchy:

➜  Inception git:(main) ✗ ls -l *
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcavalei dcavalei  258 Jan  6 16:34 Makefile

srcs:
total 28
drwxr-xr-x 5 dcavalei dcavalei 4096 Jan  6 11:45 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 dcavalei dcavalei 4096 Jan  6 17:21 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcavalei dcavalei  631 Jan  6 17:02 docker-compose.yml
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcavalei dcavalei  123 Jan  6 15:49 .env
drwxr-xr-x 3 dcavalei dcavalei 4096 Jan  6 11:23 mariadb
drwxr-xr-x 2 dcavalei dcavalei 4096 Jan  6 11:45 nginx
drwxr-xr-x 2 dcavalei dcavalei 4096 Jan  5 15:21 wordpress

basically when i type docker-compose up inside srcs dir, it works as expected, but if i try:

• docker-compose -f./srcs/docker-compose.yml up when i'm at my project root, it does not read my .env file

I get the following warning:

➜  Inception git:(main) ✗ docker-compose -f ./srcs/docker-compose.yml up
WARNING: The MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
WARNING: The MYSQL_USER variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
WARNING: The MYSQL_PASSWORD variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
WARNING: The MYSQL_WP_NAME variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.

Answer 1

In some old docker-compose, eg docker-compose version 1.24.0, build 0aa59064 . The compose will set project-directory as the current folder which run the docker-compose . The behavior changes start +v1.28 .

So, for you, you have 3 options, you can choose any one.

1. Upgrade docker-compose to +v1.28 or latest.

2. Move .env to the folder which you run docker-compose

3. Use --project-directory to force an alternate working directory, like next:

docker/docker-compose.yaml:

version: "3"

services:
  web:
    image: "webapp:${TAG}"

docker/.env:

TAG=3

execution:

$ ls
docker
$ docker-compose --project-directory docker -f docker/docker-compose.yaml config
services:
  web:
    image: webapp:3
version: '3.0'