How to set up different environments on Laravel 4? - php

Question

I am trying to set up multiple environments on a Laravel 4 app, and naturally different Databases depending on which environment we are on.
For my local machine, I set up a virtual host for "local.elders.dev"
Unfortunately, for some reason the following code is not working.
$env = $app->detectEnvironment(array(
'local' => array('http://local.elders.dev'),
));
Maybe I need to run an artisan command or something else. I feel I am close, but not quite there yet !
Thanks to all !

Answer 1

Another method is to use the name of the folder the project is in. This works in console and web. I found this to be the only reliable way if different environments are hosted on the same server.
$env = $app->detectEnvironment(array(
'staging' => strpos(getcwd(), '/staging')>-1,
'acceptance' => strpos(getcwd(), '/acceptance')>-1,
'production' => strpos(getcwd(), '/production')>-1,
));
A big advantage is that you can move staging to production by simply renaming or copying the project folder without changing files, db records or environment variables.

Answer 2

I know this is answered but for others looking for a solution...
My environment detection setting looks like this:
$env = $app->detectEnvironment(array(
// Development
// any machine name with the term "local" will use the local environment
'local' => array('*local*'),
// Stage
// any machine name with the term "stage" will use the stage environment
'stage' => array('*stage*')
// Production
// production is default, so we don't need to specify any detection
));
This is handy because it will work on any project as long as I use "local" for development (like "localhost", "localhost:8000", "my.app.local", etc.). Same goes for "stage". And production is default so anything without "local" or "stage" works for production.

Answer 3

Handling multiple environments on the same machine with Laravel 4x
What if you wanted to run multiple environments on the same machine with the same name- for example, a staging and production AND local environment?
There is a better solution for handling environments in Laravel 4x- and it can be done by adding a one liner to you vhosts file- or .htaccess:
Set local environment variable
In vhost or .htaccess add for your local installation, for staging, for example add:
SetEnv LARAVEL_ENV staging
and the same in your production .htaccess or vhost:
SetEnv LARAVEL_ENV production
Then the usual detectEnvironment() function in start.php.
$env = $app->detectEnvironment(function()
{
// Default to local if LARAVEL_ENV is not set
return getenv('LARAVEL_ENV') ?: 'local';
});
We didn't forget local... and that's the the cool part-- your installation will default to local if neither environment variable is found in vhost or .htaccess, as they would be found in the other installations.

Answer 4

OK ! I just solved the issue... The code was actually working ok ! The problem is that I was using
$_SERVER['DB1_HOST'] //for Pagodabox.
Of course this was not set on my local environment, which pretty much broke the app...
I fixed by simply doing :
isset($_SERVER['DB1_HOST']) ? $_SERVER['DB1_HOST'] : '';
Thanks to #jeroen and #theshiftexchange :)

Answer 5

Try replacing it with 'local.elders.dev', I'm not 100% sure but it's probably matching hostnames, not full paths.

Answer 6

Laravel 4 detects the environments through the machine names specified in the "bootstrap/start.php" file.
For example, in my case the config becomes:
$env = $app->detectEnvironment(array(
'local' => array('Victor.local', 'Victor-PC'),
));
This means that Laravel will use the 'local' environment settings for both machines: 'Victor.local' (a Mac) and 'Victor-PC' (Windows).
In order to know the current machine name, you can use the following PHP code:
<?php echo gethostname(); ?>
For each environment you can create a folder in app/config and replace the desired configuration files and properties.
Regards!