Adding syntax prefix parsing to specific types instead of only string var (#4190)

* Adding syntax prefix parsing to specific types instead of only strings env variables

* Update api/src/env.ts

* Update docs/reference/environment-variables.md

* Update docs/reference/environment-variables.md

* Ignore pre-parsed types

Co-authored-by: Rijk van Zanten <rijkvanzanten@me.com>

api/src/env.ts

@@ -12,6 +12,8 @@ import { clone, toString, toNumber } from 'lodash';
 import { toArray } from './utils/to-array';
 import logger from './logger';
 
+const acceptableEnvTypes = ['string', 'number', 'regex', 'array'];
+
 const defaults: Record<string, any> = {
 	CONFIG_PATH: path.resolve(process.cwd(), '.env'),
 	PORT: 8055,
@@ -123,10 +125,39 @@ function getEnv() {
 	return dotenv.parse(fs.readFileSync(configPath).toString());
 }
 
+function getVariableType(variable: string) {
+	return variable.split(':').slice(0, -1)[0];
+}
+
+function getEnvVariableValue(variableValue: string, variableType: string) {
+	return variableValue.split(`${variableType}:`)[1];
+}
+
+function getEnvironmentValueByType(envVariableString: string) {
+	const variableType = getVariableType(envVariableString);
+	const envVariableValue = getEnvVariableValue(envVariableString, variableType);
+
+	switch (variableType) {
+		case 'number':
+			return toNumber(envVariableValue);
+		case 'array':
+			return toArray(envVariableValue);
+		case 'regex':
+			return new RegExp(envVariableValue);
+		case 'string':
+			return envVariableValue;
+	}
+}
+
 function processValues(env: Record<string, any>) {
 	env = clone(env);
 
 	for (const [key, value] of Object.entries(env)) {
+		if (typeof value === 'string' && acceptableEnvTypes.some((envType) => value.includes(`${envType}:`))) {
+			env[key] = getEnvironmentValueByType(value);
+			continue;
+		}
+
 		if (typeMap[key]) {
 			switch (typeMap[key]) {
 				case 'number':