How do I configure CakePHP to detect my development / production environments or do I just keep the config files out of version control?

Question

I am a RoR developer, but I am presently working with CakePHP for a project where I cannot tweak the server. In my Rails production server, Passenger is setup to automatically use the "Production" environment, overriding the local app setup. I would like to setup my cakephp app to do the same thing. How do you usually accomplish that with CakePHP? Do you set up a domain parser, or you just keep core.php and database.php out of version control? Thanks in advance, Davide

Solution 1

If I understood the question correctly, this might be the thing you need:

Automatically choose database connections in CakePHP

Briefly, override the DATABASE_CONFIG constructor:

class DATABASE_CONFIG
{
    //initalize variable as null
    var $default=null;

    //set up connection details to use in Live production server
    var $prod = 
        array(
            // ...
        );

    // and details to use on your local machine for testing and development
    var $dev = 
        array(
            // ...
        );

    function __construct ()
    {       
        if(isset($_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'])){
            switch($_SERVER['SERVER_NAME']){
                case 'digbiz.localhost':
                    $this->default = $this->dev;
                    break;
                case 'digbiz.example.com':
                    $this->default = $this->prod;
                    break;
            }
        }
        else // we are likely baking, use our local db
        {
            $this->default = $this->dev;
        }
    }
}

Solution 2

It might be better to define the prod/dev in bootstrap.php. That way you can reuse the constant across the app.

bootstrap.php:

define('IS_PROD',(isset($_SERVER['SERVER_NAME']) && $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] == 'cubismedia.com') ? true : false); 

database.php:

function __construct() {
        if (IS_PROD) {
            $this->default = $this->prod;
        } else {
            $this->default = $this->dev;
        }
    }

//development
public $dev = array(
    //db settings
);

//production
public $prod = array(
    //db settings
);

Solution 3

For the database, you could set up the local and production connection settings and then create the file app/app_model.php and include the line:

class AppModel extends Model
{
  var $useDbConfig = 'production';
}

Then you could create the file app/app_controller.php and parse the domains and tell it which dbconfig to use and any other core.php settings by using Configure::write.

Solution 4

You could just create an extra file that holds the single Configure::write('debug', 0)* directive, import that in the core.php file and keep it out of version control. Best of both worlds.

*or whatever else you need to change

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Comments

[Eddie]

GLad this article helped you :) please leave feedback

[BMitch]

Link no longer works. In the future, it's a good idea to quote the important details from a link just in case this happens.

[dr Hannibal Lecter]

@BMitch: You are correct, it's a very good idea. I hope this is just a temporary error.

[dr Hannibal Lecter]

@BMitch: I've updated the answer now that Eddie's site is back online.

[James Alday]

This is basically what I do, but I do it up a level in core.php. I set a constant there called "APPLICATION_ENV" so I can reference it elsewhere in the code and also load an environment specific config file where I define constants (config values would work too) for things like database host, api keys, etc.

[deval]

which one is better? put it in bootstrap or core? pro/cons?