Defining configuration values under specific namespaces? - php

Question

I'm writing a framework, and have just added namespaces. I've had no trouble converting everything, save for configuration values.
I can define constants easily, so single values are not a problem...but what about an array of values?
Take this array, for instance, which is the configuration array to add a connection to Capsule...
[
'driver' => 'mysql',
'host' => 'localhost',
'database' => 'DB_NAME',
'username' => 'USERNAME',
'password' => 'PASSWORD',
'charset' => 'utf8',
'collation' => 'utf8_general_ci',
'prefix' => ''
]
I have been using a file that looks like this for database configuration...
<?php
namespace BareBones;
use Illuminate\Database\Capsule\Manager as Capsule;
$BareBonesCapsule = new Capsule;
$BareBonesCapsule->addConnection([
'driver' => 'mysql',
'host' => 'localhost',
'database' => 'DB_NAME',
'username' => 'USERNAME',
'password' => 'PASSWORD',
'charset' => 'utf8',
'collation' => 'utf8_general_ci',
'prefix' => ''
]);
$BareBonesCapsule->setAsGlobal();
$BareBonesCapsule->bootEloquent();
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint as Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model as Eloquent;
I'm going to start booting Eloquent from my main App class. This will prevent a global variable from doing it. While it is unlikely that $BareBonesCapsule is going to be used, I would still like to keep my framework clean and keep everything in it's namespace.
I could declare a bunch of constants in the configurations file...
<?php
namesapce BareBones;
define("driver", "mysql");
define("host", "localhost");
define("database", "DB_NAME");
/* etc... */
This doesn't seem very clean, and I'm assuming there is a better way to do this. How do other frameworks handle this issue, and what alternative means of configuration do I have while maintaining a separation from the global namespace?

Answer 1

You can use .ini files and break them into sections like so:
; This is a sample configuration file
; Comments start with ';', as in php.ini
[first_section]
one = 1
five = 5
animal = BIRD
[second_section]
path = "/usr/local/bin"
URL = "http://www.example.com/~username"
[third_section]
phpversion[] = "5.0"
phpversion[] = "5.1"
phpversion[] = "5.2"
phpversion[] = "5.3"
urls[svn] = "http://svn.php.net"
urls[git] = "http://git.php.net"
From: http://php.net/manual/en/function.parse-ini-file.php
Symfony supports XML, PHP and YML and allows you to write your own config decoder.