I don't use environment variables a lot, but According to the PHP docs, it looks like anything in the $ENV superglobal has to start with "PHP", so in order to access it via $_ENV you may need to call it "PHP_database_host".

Well the $_ENV does work if you have a .env.xxx.php file, it just doesnt seem to come further if you use a virtualhost for it. $SERVER is also a superglobal, if i call that instead it works just fine. But i want to keep the code the same and use $_ENV everywhere instead of having this one setup use something else.

Duh, should have thought of that. I got it working now. So now i dont need a .env.xxxx.php file.. only to find out that if you run your migrations it will not use the virtualhost and cannot set the values.

Anyways the reason is when i publish my stuff to prod i first clean the directory where it goes to. This also deletes my .env.xxx.php file so i wanted a sollution that would stick when wiped.

I'll mark above as solution from thepsion, since that was the question. But i did find another solution, its a bit cheezy but hey some solutions are. I just chmod 444 the .env.xxx.php file, so it doesn't get deleted but still works.