How can I get Laravel 4 environment variables to work? - php

Question

I have created an app with laravel and I have a set of environments I want to run on the site as always. The setup comes from the start.php file where I declare the environments like so:
$env = $app->detectEnvironment(array(
'local' => array('Mark-macbook.local'),
'development' => array('excelsior.servers.prgn.misp.co.uk'),
'production' => array('excelsior.servers.prgn.misp.co.uk'),
));
I then create files in the root where server.php is and create files that have the correct database details for each environment in like so:
.env.local.php
<?php
return array(
'DATABASE_HOST' => 'localhost',
'DATABASE_NAME' => 'borough',
'DATABASE_USER' => 'root',
'DATABASE_PASSWORD' => 'root',
'UNIX_SOCKET' => '/Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock'
);
.env.development.php
<?php
return array(
'DATABASE_HOST' => 'localhost',
'DATABASE_NAME' => 'db-name',
'DATABASE_USER' => 'db-user',
'DATABASE_PASSWORD' => 'pass'
);
.env.production.php
etc etc
Then in my database.php file in app/config I have this setup:
'connections' => array(
'mysql' => array(
'driver' => 'mysql',
'host' => $_ENV['DATABASE_HOST'],
'unix_socket' => $_ENV['UNIX_SOCKET'],
'database' => $_ENV['DATABASE_NAME'],
'username' => $_ENV['DATABASE_USER'],
'password' => $_ENV['DATABASE_PASSWORD'],
'charset' => 'utf8',
'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
'prefix' => '',
),
),
So this is all setup as how I know it usually works but when I run php artisan serve I get this error:
{"error":{"type":"ErrorException","message":"Undefined index: DATABASE_HOST","file":"\/Freelance\/Current Projects\/borough\/build\/borough-cc\/app\/config\/database.php","line":67}}
Does anyone know why this would happen and what I may be doing wrong here?
Cheers

Answer 1

From memory, as I haven't used Laravel a lot, you are not using it correctly.
Basically, the database access will look at the configuration keys in a kind of global configuration. This global config is the result of the combination of your config files from the config folder and your environment config.
Therefore, you just need to redeclare (or simply declare) your environment specific variables in the environment config.
.env.local.php
<?php
return array(
'connections' => array(
'mysql' => array(
'host' => 'localhost',
'unix_socket' => '/Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock',
'database' => 'borough,
'username' => 'root,
'password' => 'root',
),
),
),
);
database.php
'connections' => array(
'mysql' => array(
'driver' => 'mysql',
'charset' => 'utf8',
'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
'prefix' => '',
),
),
I'm a bit afraid in your example your are not defining the same keys in both config... Basically, you define the common config first, then you redefine whatever you need in the environment specific files.