hey guys,

i've just started using SS on my local machine, and have some problems how to write my _config.php. currently, we do some custom code for switching between configs, based on path, e.g. "if dir==/ischommer".

however:
- switches for my local environment shouldn't appear in _config.php (might collide with other local dev-environments)
- not everybody wants their local database-passwords flying around in svn
- you still might want some code shared between configs
- in more complicated scenarios, we might need more than one _config.php (e.g. for NZCT I had two different _config.php for the server at their offices and manu)

has anybody already put some thought into formalizing this - or has come up with some best-practices? while most of the stuff can be achieved by custom if/switch-statements in the _config.php, it would be nice to have some kind of "environment-switcher" that is able to handle different configurations, triggered by flags which are not under SVN.

I haven't done anything myself, but here's an idea:

If you have a folder ~/Sites, with subfolders for each of your projects.

Make ~/Sites/_env_config.php:

<?php

$databaseConfig['username'] = 'XXX';
$databaseConfig['password'] = 'XXX';

Director::set_environment_type("dev");
Debug::sendLiveErrorsTo("yourname@silverstripe.com");

// etc

?>

Then, in your application's _config.php you could have something like:

if(file_exists("../../_env_config.php")) include("../../_env_config.php");

Put it in after databaseConfig is defined, so that the u/p can be overridden properly.