# Quotes in Environment Variables

**URL:** <https://discuss.circleci.com/t/quotes-in-environment-variables/7677>\
**Category:** Build Environment\
**Tags:** envars\
**Created:** [October 26, 2016, 2:58pm UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/quotes-in-environment-variables/7677 "2016-10-26T14:58:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jncr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bcef8e/32.png) [@jncr](https://discuss.circleci.com/u/jncr)\
**Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 2:58pm UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/quotes-in-environment-variables/7677/1 "2016-10-26T14:58:01Z")

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Trying to pass a secret into docker build, but it needs to be a valid JSON string.

For the life of me I can’t pass quotes through the Environment Variables config section, they just get stripped:  
(edited for brevity)

{“[github.com](http://github.com)”} -\> {[github.com](http://github.com)}  
{“[github.com](http://github.com)”} -\> {\[github.com](http://github.com)}  
{""“[githhub.com](http://githhub.com)”""} -\> {""“[github.com](http://github.com)”""}

Please help ☹

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**Author:** ![FelicianoTech](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/circleci/user_avatar/discuss.circleci.com/felicianotech/32/21348_2.png) [@FelicianoTech](https://discuss.circleci.com/u/FelicianoTech)\
**Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 5:43pm UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/quotes-in-environment-variables/7677/2 "2016-10-26T17:43:12Z")

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Whenever I need to store more than basic ASCII characters in an environment variable, I would base64 encode it first. Then decode it during the build when you need it. You can see an example of how this is done from one of our sample projects: [https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/continuous-deployment-circle/blob/master/circle.yml#L25](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/continuous-deployment-circle/blob/master/circle.yml#L25)

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/circleci/original/3X/5/1/511608acda8e85906e15909b57bd0a46c1dbe291.png) [@system](https://discuss.circleci.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 11:38am UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/quotes-in-environment-variables/7677/3 "2018-06-18T11:38:50Z")

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Closed on June 18, 2018, 11:38am UTC