Global configuration

[subnet_rx]

What's the best way to setup configuration variables in a script? Like base_directories, user, passwords for db connect, etc.? So that all functions have access to them. Is it better to set this file up and then pass the variables one by one?

[Aska]

I'm pretty sure this is not the "best way" but this is how I do it. I have a configuration file which is "required" by all the other scripts, and it'd contain things like:

# file system paths
define( 'PATH_ROOT', '/home/someuser/public_html' );
define( 'PATH_INC', PATH_ROOT.'/inc' );
# web paths
define( 'WEB_ROOT', '' );
define( 'WEB_IMG', WEB_ROOT.'/images' );
# database
define( 'DB_HOST', 'localhost' );
define( 'DB_USER', 'abc' );
define( 'DB_PASS', 'def' );
define( 'DB_NAME', 'mydb' );
# etc... 

You may want to keep this file outside your public directory in case of (unlikely though it may seem) some sort of server configuration mishap.

[subnet_rx]

it will have to stay in the script directory since I'd like to distribute the script and edit it with a configuration script.

[mark_W]

You could also have a configuration class, then you can start a new instance of in the files needing it

Mark

[mrobinson]

I typically have a config file built like this:

if (!defined('VALID_ENTRY_POINT')) {
         header('HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found');
         exit();
     }
     
     $CFG = array();
     
     $CFG['paths']['rootDir'] = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'];
     $CFG['paths']['classDir'] = $CFG['paths']['rootDir'] . '/classes';
   
     $CFG['http']['disallowProxyCache'] = TRUE;
     $CFG['http']['gzipCompress'] = TRUE; 

And then in every page I call the config file like this:

define('VALID_ENTRY_POINT', TRUE);
    require_once('config.php'); 

I put the configuration into an array because it makes everything easy to transport, and great to print_r when debugging.

Defining the VALID_ENTRY_POINT in each page that calls the config file ensures that casual browsing doesn't expose anything.

Very much simplified, but I think it demonstrates my method.