h4. Working with POMs during development

///

An environment variable (also known as "**env var**") is a variable that lives **outside** of the Python code, in the **operating system**, and could be read by your Python code (or by other programs as well).

Environment variables could be useful for handling application **settings**, as part of the **installation** of Python, etc.

## Create and Use Env Vars

     * @return The deserialized metadata, never {@code null}.
     * @throws IOException If the metadata could not be deserialized.
     * @throws MetadataParseException If the input format could not be parsed.
     */
    Metadata read(File input, Map<String, ?> options) throws IOException, MetadataParseException;

    /**

     * @return The deserialized settings, never {@code null}.
     * @throws IOException If the settings could not be deserialized.
     * @throws SettingsParseException If the input format could not be parsed.
     */
    Settings read(File input, Map<String, ?> options) throws IOException, SettingsParseException;

    /**

     * @return The deserialized toolchains, never {@code null}.
     * @throws IOException If the toolchains could not be deserialized.
     * @throws ToolchainsParseException If the input format could not be parsed.
     */
    PersistedToolchains read(File input, Map<String, ?> options) throws IOException, ToolchainsParseException;

    /**

Now, let's see how you could use that to return a custom response.

Let's say that you want to return an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML" class="external-link" target="_blank">XML</a> response.

# OpenAPI Callbacks

You could create an API with a *path operation* that could trigger a request to an *external API* created by someone else (probably the same developer that would be *using* your API).

But for the generated client we could **modify** the OpenAPI operation IDs right before generating the clients, just to make those method names nicer and **cleaner**.

We could download the OpenAPI JSON to a file `openapi.json` and then we could **remove that prefixed tag** with a script like this:

//// tab | Python

```Python

This client could be a browser with a frontend, a code from someone else, an IoT device, etc.

You could need to tell the client that:

* The client doesn't have enough privileges for that operation.
* The client doesn't have access to that resource.
* The item the client was trying to access doesn't exist.
* etc.

If you use a `requirements.txt` file you could specify the version with:

```txt
fastapi[standard]==0.112.0
```

that would mean that you would use exactly the version `0.112.0`.

Or you could also pin it with:

```txt
fastapi[standard]>=0.112.0,<0.113.0
```