Django improperly configured error if secret key begins with a dollar sign character

[DanielOram]

I've come across this error which only seems to occur when using the django-environ package to read a SECRET_KEY from a .env file.

My .env file (with a generated secret key using the get_random_secret_key module from django)

SECRET_KEY=$q*eo+c&2!)u9^tpd6f=0szxt6+th!j^#z9$1mh!kyen*36($t)

My settings.py file

import environ
env = environ.Env()
environ.Env.read_env()

SECRET_KEY = env('SECRET_KEY')

Running this code will generate the following error

django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Set the q*eo+c&2!)u9^tpd6f=0szxt6+th!j^#z9$1mh!kyen*36($t) environment variable

Even if I surround the secret key value with single or double quotes the error will still occur.

This error does not occur if I use a different python environment file package such as python-dotenv to read the same .env file.

The django-environ package seems to think the SECRET_KEY value is an environment variable itself.
I know this is a very niche situation as this secret key that I generated just happened to have a leading '$' character but it may catch people out if they're generating their secret key with a script. The error occurs for any secret key value that starts with a '$'.
Full stack trace:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/opt/anaconda3/envs/django_py/lib/python3.9/site-packages/environ/environ.py", line 273, in get_value
    value = self.ENVIRON[var]
  File "/opt/anaconda3/envs/django_py/lib/python3.9/os.py", line 679, in __getitem__
    raise KeyError(key) from None
KeyError: 'q*eo+c&2!)u9^tpd6f=0szxt6+th!j^#z9$1mh!kyen*36($t)'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/danieloram/Desktop/test_env/environ_secret_key.py", line 10, in <module>
    SECRET_KEY = env('SECRET_KEY')
  File "/opt/anaconda3/envs/django_py/lib/python3.9/site-packages/environ/environ.py", line 123, in __call__
    return self.get_value(var, cast=cast, default=default, parse_default=parse_default)
  File "/opt/anaconda3/envs/django_py/lib/python3.9/site-packages/environ/environ.py", line 284, in get_value
    value = self.get_value(value, cast=cast, default=default)
  File "/opt/anaconda3/envs/django_py/lib/python3.9/site-packages/environ/environ.py", line 277, in get_value
    raise ImproperlyConfigured(error_msg)
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Set the q*eo+c&2!)u9^tpd6f=0szxt6+th!j^#z9$1mh!kyen*36($t) environment variable

django version: 3.0.3

django-environ version: 0.4.5

[fdemmer]

duplicate of long standing issue #60

[zacwellmer]

@sergeyklay is there a way to not to escape backslashes when reading environment variables? I'm able to successfully load a private key with python-dotenv but am having issues when loading with django-environ

[sergeyklay]

@zacwellmer Current issues is duplicate for #60 and is related to using the dollar sign at the beginning of the value. Could you please open a new issue with code to reproduce?