Development Environments and Configuration in Laravel

Development Environments and Configuration in Laravel

• All configurations and settings in /app/config/ will be used by your Laravel app in Production

• To check your current environment run: php artisan env You should get a response similar to: Current application environment: production

• To create separate configurations for Local Development and Production, copy database.php, mail.php and app.php from /app/config/ to /app/config/local/

• Run the following command in Terminal or Command Prompt to know your hostname: hostname

• Next, make the required changes in /bootstrap/start.php. In my case, my development machine's hostname is CPG-PC, so I would replace local-machine-hostname to CPG-PC

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(array(
    
    'local' => array('local-machine-hostname'),
    'staging' => array('staging-server-hostname'),
    'production' => array('production-server-hostname'),

));

• Now if you run: php artisan env You should get get a response similar to: Current application environment: local. This means that all settings in /app/config/local/ will take precedence over settings in /app/config/

Environment & Configurations for Production

Extra Tips

• You can get rid of all configurations in the /app/config/local/ that are repeated in /app/config/. Just keep the unique configurations.
• Enable debug mode by going to /app/config/local/app.php and set 'debug' = true,
• Service providers for development only tools like Generators and Debugbar should go in /app/config/local/app.php

'providers' => append_config(array(
        'Way\Generators\GeneratorsServiceProvider',
        'Barryvdh\Debugbar\ServiceProvider',
)),

Command Line Tips

• Run the hostname command in CMD and then change /bootstrap/start.php
• Shorten command line path in Windows by running the following ommand: prompt $g
• For a better developer workflow in Windows, use PowerShell instead of Command Prompt
• In Windows Explorer, just go to the Address Bar at the top and type powershell and press Enter. A Powershell command window opens with the current directory.
• In Windows, create an alias for Laravel: Set-Alias art "php artisan"
• In Linux, create an alias for Laravel: alias art='php artisan'