php - What's the correct way to set ENV variables in Laravel 5?

Question

In laravel 4 we had:

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(array(
    'local' => array('homestead')
));

by default.

But in laravel 5 it's changed to:

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(function()
{
    return getenv('APP_ENV') ?: 'production';
});

Also, they have excluded .env.* line in .gitignore, now it has:

.env

And added file .env.example:

APP_ENV=local
APP_KEY=SomeRandomString
DB_USERNAME=homestead
DB_PASSWORD=homestead

So, if i have more than 2 environments, do i have to set all of them in a single .env file now? E.g.:

APP_ENV=local
DB_PASSWORD=123

APP_ENV=alpha
DB_PASSWORD=456

If i would have no .env file, how laravel will know what environment i am using?

Answer 1

You can do it exactly the same as in Laravel 4:

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(array(
    'local' => array('homestead')
));

*.env file are just used to put sensitive data that shouldn't be put into VCS. The same is in Laravel 4

but is seems that in last days default detectEnvironment was changed to:

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(function()
{
    return getenv('APP_ENV') ?: 'production';
});

so you can use either setting variable from PC name or from ENV file.

If you use ENV based environment detection in main env file (by default .env file you need to add:

APP_ENV=local

Of course local here is local environment, you can change it into production or dev

At the moment the most important issue I see is that you need to remember when going on production to change this .env file content from APP_ENV=local to APP_ENV=production so in my opinion much better method is the old default method based on PC names.

Now ENV files. If you use ENV based environment detection, you should put into your ENV file only:

APP_ENV=local

Now you can create separate ENV files for your different environments for example:

.local.env :

 MY_DB=testdb

.production.env :

MY_DB=productiondb

and now in bootstrap.environment.php file you can modfiy:

if (file_exists(__DIR__.'/../.env'))
{
    Dotenv::load(__DIR__.'/../');
}

into:

if (file_exists(__DIR__.'/../.env'))
{
    Dotenv::load(__DIR__.'/../');

    if (getenv('APP_ENV') && file_exists(__DIR__.'/../.' .getenv('APP_ENV') .'.env')) {
        Dotenv::load(__DIR__ . '/../', '.' . getenv('APP_ENV') . '.env');
    }   
}

to load extra env file based on APP_ENV from main env file.

Now you will be able to use it in your other configuration file as always: $_ENV['MY_DB']