Where to specify an app version on a Laravel app? - php

Question

I used to specify the app version inside composer.json until I read somewhere here in Stack Overflow that it was a bad practice. What is the standard file to specifying the app version on a PHP Laravel application? (i.e: in .NET that'd be the config file, on iOS it'd be the info.plist, on Android it'd be the Manifest, etc...)

Answer 1

config/app.php is definitely the place for such information.
Why ? Because the configuration files are (or should be) included in your versioning flow and they (should) contain non-sensitive information about your application. The perfect place for a simple version indicator.
under the name index of the array, you could set a version index like this
/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Application Version
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| This value is the version of your application. This value is used when
| the framework needs to place the application's version in a notification
| or any other location as required by the application or its packages.
*/
'version' => '1.0.0',

Answer 2

#delatbabel
has a great start for version
config/app.php
'version' => env('APP_VERSION', '1.0.0'),
for config/bugsnag:
'app_version' => env('APP_VERSION', '1.0.0'),
then you can simply get your version with:
config('app.version')
Docker
now in docker you could set a default version on build:
ENV APP_VERSION=1.0.0
for example with circle CI you can add your build number:
ARG BUILD_NR
ENV APP_VERSION=1.0.$BUILD_NR
Now in your config.yml, you can add following job commando:
deliver-prod:
machine: true
steps:
- checkout
- docker build --build-arg BUILD_NR=$CIRCLE_BUILD_NUM .

Answer 3

I normally set it in my .env file and then pick that up in a config.
e.g. .env says:
APP_VERSION=2.1
config/app.php says:
'version' => env('APP_VERSION', '0.0.1-alpha'),

Answer 4

My approch for now: GitLab pipeline writes the "version.php" file after every successful build. The file has the following content:
<?php const VERSION = '1.2.3';
In the "config/app.php" I include the file
require_once __DIR__ . '/../version.php';
...
'version' => VERSION,
...
The version can be queried as follows (e.g. as a route):
Route::get('api/version', function () {
return ["version" => config('app.version')];
})
->name('version');