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 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 −
$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.
The following table describes the role of various variables and how they affect your CakePHP application.
debug
Changes CakePHP debugging output.
false = Production mode. No error messages, errors, or warnings shown.
true = Errors and warnings shown.
App.namespace
The namespace to find app classes under.
App.baseUrl
Un-comment this definition, if you don’t plan to use Apache’s mod_rewrite with CakePHP. Don’t forget to remove your .htaccess files too.
App.base
The base directory the app resides in. If false, this will be auto detected.
App.encoding
Define what encoding your application uses. This encoding is used to generate the charset in the layout, and encode entities. It should match the encoding values specified for your database.
App.webroot
The webroot directory.
App.wwwRoot
The file path to webroot.
App.fullBaseUrl
The fully qualified domain name (including protocol) to your application’s root.
App.imageBaseUrl
Web path to the public images directory under webroot.
App.cssBaseUrl
Web path to the public css directory under webroot.
App.jsBaseUrl
Web path to the public js directory under webroot.
App.paths
Configure paths for non-class based resources. Supports the plugins, templates, locales, subkeys, which allow the definition of paths for plugins, view templates and locale files respectively.
Security.salt
A random string used in hashing. This value is also used as the HMAC salt when doing symmetric encryption.
Asset.timestamp
Appends a timestamp, which is last modified time of the particular file at the end of asset files URLs (CSS, JavaScript, Image) when using proper helpers. The valid values are −
(bool) false - Doesn’t do anything (default).
(bool) false - Doesn’t do anything (default).
(bool) true - Appends the timestamp, when debug is true.
(bool) true - Appends the timestamp, when debug is true.
(string) ‘force’ - Always appends the timestamp.
(string) ‘force’ - Always appends the timestamp.
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.
*/
   '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.
The database server’s hostname (or IP address).
Database username
Database password.
Name of Database.
The TCP port or Unix socket used to connect to the server.
'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.
className
The fully namespaced class name of the class that represents the connection to a database server. This class is responsible for loading the database driver, providing SQL transaction mechanisms and preparing SQL statements among other things.
driver
The class name of the driver used to implement all specificities for a database engine. This can either be a short classname using plugin syntax, a fully namespaced name, or a constructed driver instance. Examples of short classnames are Mysql, Sqlite, Postgres, and Sqlserver.
persistent
Whether or not to use a persistent connection to the database.
encoding
Indicates the character set to use, when sending SQL statements to the server like ‘utf8’ etc.
timezone
Server timezone to set.
init
A list of queries that should be sent to the database server as and when the connection is created.
log
Set to true to enable query logging. When enabled queries will be logged at a debug level with the queriesLog scope.
quoteIdentifiers
Set to true, if you are using reserved words or special characters in your table or column names. Enabling this setting will result in queries built using the Query Builder having identifiers quoted when creating SQL. It decreases performance.
flags
An associative array of PDO constants that should be passed to the underlying PDO instance.
cacheMetadata
Either boolean true, or a string containing the cache configuration to store meta data in. Having metadata caching disable is not advised and can result in very poor performance.
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().
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
Mail − Send using PHP mail function
Smtp − Send using SMTP
Smtp − Send using SMTP
Debug − Do not send the email, just return the result
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),
   ],
],
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',
   ],
],
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