Can you configure Apache to work on multiple developer workstations?

Question

I am on a Mac running Snow Leopard which includes Apache. I want to run a local copy of Apache for web development. To do this so far I have had to set my full path for the document root and the rest of the paths for things like ErrorLog and PidFile.

What I would like to do is create an httpd.conf which work across multiple developer workstations (Mac or possibly Linux as well) without modification.

For me my home directory is...

/Users/brennan

But I would really like to use...

~/

I have tried and it does not like this format. Other option would be to set environment variables. I am not aware that this would work either. I have my files checked out to a folder which is likely a different relative path to my home directory than the other developers on the team.

Can Apache be configured to use an environment variable?

Have you ever set up an Apache configuration to run across multiple developer workstations?

Answer 1

Have you ever set up an Apache configuration to run across multiple developer workstations?

Yes - but I chose to do that by enforcing a standard directory layout - the same as the test and live servers - so even if the developers used an absolute filesystem path (and this was not picked up in the QA) there was a good chance that there wouldn't be hidden nasties when the software was deployed to live.