In the previous chapter, we have seen that the basic configuration files of Laravel are included in the config directory. In this chapter, let us discuss the categories included in the configuration.

Environment Configuration

Environment variables are those which provide a list of web services to your web application. All the environment variables are declared in the .env file which includes the parameters required for initializing the configuration.

By default, the .env file includes following parameters −

APP_ENV = local
APP_DEBUG = true
APP_KEY = base64:ZPt2wmKE/X4eEhrzJU6XX4R93rCwYG8E2f8QUA7kGK8 =
APP_URL = http://localhost
DB_CONNECTION = mysql
DB_HOST = 127.0.0.1
DB_PORT = 3306
DB_DATABASE = homestead
DB_USERNAME = homestead
DB_PASSWORD = secret
CACHE_DRIVER = file
SESSION_DRIVER = file
QUEUE_DRIVER = sync
REDIS_HOST = 127.0.0.1
REDIS_PASSWORD = null
REDIS_PORT = 6379
MAIL_DRIVER = smtp
MAIL_HOST = mailtrap.ioMAIL_PORT = 2525
MAIL_USERNAME = null
MAIL_PASSWORD = null
MAIL_ENCRYPTION = null

Important Points

While working with basic configuration files of Laravel, the following points are to be noted −

• The .env file should not be committed to the application source control, since each developer or user has some predefined environment configuration for the web application.

• For backup options, the development team should include the .env.example file, which should contain the default configuration.

Retrieval of Environment Variables

All the environment variables declared in the .env file can be accessed by env-helper functions which will call the respective parameter. These variables are also listed into $_ENV global variable whenever application receives a request from the user end. You can access the environment variable as shown below −

''env'' => env(''APP_ENV'', ''production''),

env-helper functions are called in the app.php file included in the config folder. The above given example is calling for the basic local parameter.

Accessing Configuration Values

You can easily access the configuration values anywhere in the application using the global config helper function. In case if the configuration values are not initialized, default values are returned.

For example, to set the default time zone, the following code is used −

config([''app.timezone'' => ''Asia/Kolkata'']);

Caching of Configuration

To increase the performance and to boost the web application, it is important to cache all the configuration values. The command for caching the configuration values is −

config:cache

The following screenshot shows caching in a systematic approach −

Maintenance Mode

Sometimes you may need to update some configuration values or perform maintenance on your website. In such cases, keeping it in maintenance mode, makes it easier for you. Such web applications which are kept in maintenance mode, throw an exception namely MaintenanceModeException with a status code of 503.

You can enable the maintenance mode on your Laravel web application using the following command −

php artisan down

The following screenshot shows how the web application looks when it is down −

Once you finish working on updates and other maintenance, you can disable the maintenance mode on your web application using following command −

php artisan up

Now, you can find that the website shows the output with proper functioning and depicting that the maintenance mode is now removed as shown below −