PHP Included Array Warning - php

Question

I'm having a problem with an array in php, which I use to store configuration data for different environments. The idea is that I only have to switch out the file with the config data when going from local testing to using it on the server. The file looks like this:
<?php
$_ENV = array(
'MySQL' => array(
'database'=>'<DATABASENAME>',
'server'=>'<SERVERNAME>',
'username'=>'<USERNAME>',
'password'=>'<PASSWORD>'
)
);
?>
And I include it this way:
include('../env.php');
For the connection to the database I use it like this:
$conn = mysql_connect($_ENV['MySQL']['server'], $_ENV['MySQL']['username'],$_ENV['MySQL']['password']) or die("No connection possible: " . mysql_error());
Ignoring the fact that I'm still using mysql instead of PDO or mysqli, which is a thing I'm going to change soon, this should work. But it does not:
Notice: Undefined index: MySQL in D:\data\dev\applications\wtc-feedback\dashboard\include\SQLrequest.php on line 36
The strange thing is that when I dump the environment variable onto the screen with var_dump() the indexes and the contents are all just fine.
Does anyone know how to fix this?

Answer 1

If You want to work with environmental variables use getenv, putenv
or use .env files (package here, docs here) and add .env to .gitignore
in fact Your code must be like this:
env.php:
<?php
putenv('DB_NAME=DATABASENAME');
putenv('DB_HOST=SERVERNAME');
putenv('DB_USER=USERNAME');
putenv('DB_PASS=PASSWORD');
connection.php:
<?php
include('../env.php');
$conn = mysql_connect(getenv('DB_HOST'), getenv('DB_USER'), getenv('DB_PASS'))
OR die("No connection possible: " . mysql_error());
".env" way:
.env file:
DB_NAME=DATABASENAME
DB_HOST=SERVERNAME
DB_USER=USERNAME
DB_PASS=PASSWORD
connection.php:
<?php
require_once('../vendor/autoload.php');
use Symfony\Component\Dotenv\Dotenv;
(new Dotenv())->load(__DIR__.'/../.env');
$conn = mysql_connect(getenv('DB_HOST'), getenv('DB_USER'), getenv('DB_PASS'))
OR die("No connection possible: " . mysql_error());

Answer 2

Simple solution wouuld be, return the simple array from the file. as
<?php
return array(
'MySQL' => array(
'database'=>'<DATABASENAME>',
'server'=>'<SERVERNAME>',
'username'=>'<USERNAME>',
'password'=>'<PASSWORD>'
)
);
?>
In other file
$credentials = require_once "../env.php";
Use the $credentials array to supply parameters to mysql connection function