dotenv breaks for newlines in single-quoted string values (unlike the real dotenv)

[dbarnett]

Describe the bug If a .env file contains a single-quoted string value with line breaks in it, the dotenv tool (and bash/zsh) can process the literal line break and load the value fine, but direnv's dotenv command chokes parsing the line after it.

To Reproduce

$ echo "X='abc
123'" > .env
$ echo "dotenv" > .envrc
$ direnv allow

See the error direnv: error invalid line: 123'.

Expected behavior Should load a variable X containing a multiline value like dotenv does.

Environment

• OS: macOS Sequoia 15.5
• Shell: zsh
• Direnv version 2.37.1

Additional context This is extra frustrating because I can't seem to find ANY way to represent literal newlines in a .env file that both direnv and dotenv will support with the same semantics...

[dancrumb]

Does this not work for you?

... you can double quote strings and use the \n character:

https://github.com/motdotla/dotenv?tab=readme-ov-file#multiline-values

[dbarnett]

Sadly no, not for all cases. I'm using single-quoted strings because they're the only way dotenv can properly serialize env values like

{
  "somekey": "a \"b\n\" c"
}

but after a lot of wrestling with it I haven't found a way that both direnv and real dotenv can safely represent it, if direnv won't support the same single-quote semantics like this.