Set Application_ENV via virtual host config and read this in PHP

Question

I like how this works in Zend Framework. I can know which environment I'm currently using by checking APPLICATION_ENV constant in my controller.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    #ServerName 
    #DocumentRoot

        SetEnv APPLICATION_ENV "development"

    # Directory
</VirtualHost>

But unfortunately I can't use ZF in my current project. How can I check this environment variable in my PHP code?

Answer 1

Since SetEnv set's the value to Apache's environment, you can get it with

• apache_getenv — Get an Apache subprocess_env variable

or just

• getenv — Gets the value of an environment variable

---

If you look at public/index.php in a ZF project, you will see ZF uses getenv:

// Define application environment
defined('APPLICATION_ENV')
    || define('APPLICATION_ENV', (getenv('APPLICATION_ENV') ? 
                                  getenv('APPLICATION_ENV') : 
                                  'production'));

---

An often use alternative would be to read the Hostname from PHP and define the constant accordingly:

if(!defined('APPLICATION_ENV')) {
    if(FALSE === stripos($_SERVER['SERVER_NAME']), 'www.example.com') {
        define(APPLICATION_ENV, 'development');
    } else {
        define(APPLICATION_ENV, 'production');
    }
}

This way, you don't have to rely on the environment setting at all.

Answer 2

SetEnv defines an environment variable.

Once this has been set (either in your Apache's configuration, or at the system level), you can read its value using the getenv function :

echo getenv('APPLICATION_ENV');

For instance, if you use this in your .htaccess file :

SetEnv TEST glop

You can use this portion of PHP code :

var_dump(getenv('TEST'));

And you'll get :

string 'glop' (length=4)