How to let Cakephp 3 choose database connection by Apache environment variable

Question

I'm working with cakephp v3 and want to install the application in two different environments, one for development and one for production use. Both installations should consist of exactly the same files (and file contents), so I could use 'git' or 'svn' to easily deploy the application.

If both environments are hosted on the same machine, I need different database settings (so that the development env uses its own 'testing' DB). I thought of configuring two 'Datasources' in app.php, the 'default' one for production and a `development'.

But how can I switch between both sources?

To be more specific: Currently I define the following environment variable in my Apache config for the development environment:

SetEnv CAKEPHP_DEBUG 1

Then I changed the definition of 'debug' in the app.php file like this:

'debug' => (bool)getenv('CAKEPHP_DEBUG'),

This enables DEBUG mode only on the development machine. Now I also want to switch database configuration in the same easy way.

(I already found some solutions for cakephp v2, but all of them are pretty old and I'm not sure what's the best way to do it in cakephp v3.)

arilia · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-06 10:03:12Z

3

The manual says

You can define as many connections as you want in your configuration file. You can also define additional connections at runtime using Cake\Datasource\ConnectionManager::config().

So I guess you can check the value of debug in AppController beforeFilter and change the default database connection

AppController.php

if(Configure::read('debug') == 1)
{
    ConnectionManager::config('default', [
        'className' => 'Cake\Database\Connection',
        'driver' => 'Cake\Database\Driver\Mysql',
        'persistent' => false,
        'host' => 'dev_server',
        'username' => 'dev_username',
        'password' => 'dev_passwd',
        'database' => 'development',
        'encoding' => 'utf8',
        'timezone' => 'UTC',
        'cacheMetadata' => true,
    ]);
}

I think you can do something similar in app.php using the ternary operator

app.php

'Datasources' => [
    'default' => getenv('CAKEPHP_DEBUG')== 1 ? [ /* debug params */ ] : [ /* default params */]
    ...
]

But somehow it don't seem the 'clean' way to do it

I think that a cleaner way would be to set both configurations in app.php and then in appController choose what configurations to use

app.php

'Datasources' => [
    'debug' => [ /* debug params */ ],
    'default' => [ /* default params */]
]

Table file

public static function defaultConnectionName() {
    if(Configure::read('debug') == 1)
        return 'debug';
    return 'default';
}

edited May 6, 2016 at 10:03

answered Apr 26, 2016 at 12:46

arilia

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6 Comments

Wile E. Genius Over a year ago

Seems to work, thanks! However, I'd prefer putting the DB config in app.php instead of AppController.php.

Wile E. Genius Over a year ago

Thanks for the update! The ternary operator works perfectly! The solution with `defaultConnectionName' does not work: if I read the docs correctly, this method must be overwritten in every *Table class and I don't want to duplicate the code so often...

arilia Over a year ago

I guess you can create a parent table and let all others tables inherit from it. But maybe it's over complicated

ndm Over a year ago

Another way would be to load different/additional configuration files in your bootstrap, depending on the environment. Something along the lines of this for example: gist.github.com/ndm2/33896a7bf461ac84df6265f15099291f

arilia Over a year ago

@ndm in that case how should the config file be? If I understand well it should redefine/overwrite the Datasources array, right?

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