CakePHP - Project Configuration

In this chapter, we will understand the Environment Variables, General Configuration, Database Configuration and Email Configuration in CakePHP.

Configuration CakePHP comes with one configuration file by default, and we can modify it according to our needs. There is one dedicated folder “config” for this purpose. CakePHP comes with different configuration options.

Let us start by understanding the Environment Variables in CakePHP.

Environment Variables

Environment variables make the working of your application on different environments easy. For example, on dev server, test server, staging server and production server environment. For all these environments, you can make use of env() function to read the configuration for the environment you need and build your application.

In your config folder, you will come across config/.env.example. This file has all the variables that will be changed based on your environment. To start with, you can create a file in config folder i.e. config/.env and define those variables and use them. In case you need any additional variables, it can go in that file.

You can read your environment variable using env() function as shown below −

Example

$debug = env('APP_DEBUG', false);

The first one is the name of the environment variable you want and second value is the default value. The default value is used, if there is no value found for the environment variable.

General Configuration

The following table describes the role of various variables and how they affect your CakePHP application.

Databases Configuration

Database can be configured in config/app.php and config/app_local.php file. This file contains a default connection with provided parameters, which can be modified as per our choice.

The below snippet shows the default parameters and values, which should be modified as per the requirement.

Config/app_local.php

*/
   'Datasources' => [
      'default' => [
         'host' => 'localhost',
         'username' => 'my_app',
         'password' => 'secret',
         'database' => 'my_app',
         'url' => env('DATABASE_URL', null),
      ],
      /*
         * The test connection is used during the test suite.
      */
      'test' => [
         'host' => 'localhost',
         //'port' => 'non_standard_port_number',
         'username' => 'my_app',
         'password' => 'secret',
         'database' => 'test_myapp',
         //'schema' => 'myapp',
      ],
   ],

Let us understand each parameter in detail in config/app_local.php.

config/app.php

'Datasources' => [
   'default' => [
      'className' => Connection::class,
      'driver' => Mysql::class,
      'persistent' => false,
      'timezone' => 'UTC',
      //'encoding' => 'utf8mb4',
      'flags' => [],
      'cacheMetadata' => true,
      'log' => false,
      'quoteIdentifiers' => false,
      //'init' => ['SET GLOBAL innodb_stats_on_metadata = 0'],
   ],
]   

Let us understand each parameter in detail in config/app.php.

Email Configuration

Email can be configured in file config/app.php. It is not required to define email configuration in config/app.php. Email can be used without it. Just use the respective methods to set all configurations separately or load an array of configs. Configuration for Email defaults is created using config() and configTransport().

Email Configuration Transport

By defining transports separately from delivery profiles, you can easily re-use transport configuration across multiple profiles. You can specify multiple configurations for production, development and testing. Each transport needs a className. Valid options are as follows −

• Mail − Send using PHP mail function

• Smtp − Send using SMTP

• Debug − Do not send the email, just return the result

You can add custom transports (or override existing transports) by adding the appropriate file to src/Mailer/Transport. Transports should be named YourTransport.php, where 'Your' is the name of the transport.

Following is the example of Email configuration transport.

'EmailTransport' => [
   'default' => [
      'className' => 'Mail',
      // The following keys are used in SMTP transports
      'host' => 'localhost',
      'port' => 25,
      'timeout' => 30,
      'username' => 'user',
      'password' => 'secret',
      'client' => null,
      'tls' => null,
      'url' => env('EMAIL_TRANSPORT_DEFAULT_URL', null),
   ],
],

Email Delivery Profiles

Delivery profiles allow you to predefine various properties about email messages from your application, and give the settings a name. This saves duplication across your application and makes maintenance and development easier. Each profile accepts a number of keys.

Following is an example of Email delivery profiles.

'Email' => [
   'default' => [
   
      'transport' => 'default',
      'from' => 'you@localhost',
   ],
],