brunty/laravel-environment

Generate and work with .env files from the command line via an artisan command within Laravel.

Setup and work with .env files in Laravel from the command line

NOTE: This doesn't work with Laravel 5 since .env files were changed. This is for Laravel 4.X

, _(*1)

Future features

• Allow for more config types for values - currently only strings are supported, I want to add support for constants, integers, booleans etc.

This Laravel 4 package gives you a way to setup and work with your environment files within Laravel from the command line., _(*2)

• env:configure

Installation

Install the package through Composer. Edit your project's composer.json file to require brunty/laravel-environment., _(*3)

"require": {
    "brunty/laravel-environment": "0.*"
}

Next, update Composer from the Terminal:, _(*4)

composer update

Once this has completed, add the service provider to your service providers array in app/config/app.php, _(*5)

'Brunty\LaravelEnvironment\LaravelEnvironmentServiceProvider'

You should then be able to see the command within artisan, _(*6)

php artisan

Usage

• php artisan env:configure

Use the above command to setup and/or configure an environment file, it works with the optional --env flag to specify what environment the file should be for., _(*7)

When using this command, it'll prompt you for the variable name first, then the value., _(*8)

If you want to specify a multi-dimensional array of items, you can use dot notation:, _(*9)

db.host

With a value of foo, _(*10)

Would be put into the .env file under:, _(*11)

[
    'db'    =>  [
        'host'  =>  'foo'
    ]
]

The names you enter for your env variables will autocomplete with existing values you have in the file., _(*12)

To finish setup, just hit enter without giving a name when the command prompts you for a name., _(*13)

It'll then give you a table showing the values that will be written to the file and prompt you to confirm that you want to write these values., _(*14)

Access environment variables

Previously, you may have accessed your environment variables with the $_ENV superglobal like so:, _(*15)

'key'   =>  $_ENV['ENV_VAR'],

This can cause undefined index errors if you don't have a file for your environment already setup (this package can create a file from blank if required) when using this way of accessing environment variables., _(*16)

I would recommend that you reference your environment variables using:, _(*17)

'key'   =>  getenv('varname'),

Which will simply return false if the environment variable doesn't exist (any 'multi-dimensional' items can be access with dot notation in the same way you entered them), _(*18)

Notes:

• Using this command, you can over-write previous values, to do this, just give the same name as the existing value, and it'll over-write the old values as it merges the user input with any existing values.
• If using multi-dimensional arrays, you cannot specify both a value for an item, and have an array in that same item.
• This command assumes you're running it under a user who has permission to write files if needed (as well as create the file if it doesn't already exist)

Example of an early version working

, _(*19)