Creating a config system that's suitable for any website application, this is the way 1 of the ways I use.

Why?

  • It has a global scope
  • You can enable / disable changes to protected configs
  • You can add any settings during anywhere within runtime.
  • You can make the class automated to fetch public configs from a file / DB.


Example:

PHP Code: 
    class Settings
    {
        static private $protected = array(); //For DB / Passwords etc
        static private $public = array(); //For all public strings such as meta stuff for site
    
        public static function getProtected($key)
        {
            return isset(self::$protected[$key]) ? self::$protected[$key] : false;
        }
    
        public static function getPublic($key)
        {
            return isset(self::$public[$key]) ? self::$public[$key] : false;
        }
    
        public static function setProtected($key,$value)
        {
            self::$protected[$key] = $value;
        }
    
        public static function setPublic($key,$value)
        {
            self::$public[$key] = $value;
        }

        public function __get($key)
        {//$this->key // returns public->key
            return isset(self::$public[$key]) ? self::$public[$key] : false;
        }

        public function __isset($key)
        {
            return isset(self::$public[$key]);
        }
    } 
Then within your runtime, if you loaded this file first, followed by your database config file, your database config file would look like so:

PHP Code: 
<?php
    Settings::setProtected('db_hostname','localhost');
    Settings::setProtected('db_username','root');
    Settings::setProtected('db_password','');
    Settings::setProtected('db_database','root');
    Settings::setProtected('db_charset','UTF-8');
    //...
    echo Settings::getProtected('db_hostname'); //localhost
    //...
    Settings::setPublic('config_site_title','MySiteTitle');
    Settings::setPublic('config_site_charset','UTF-8');
    Settings::setPublic('config_site_root','http://localhost/dev/');
    ?>
As you can see the we have a method `__get` that should only be allowed to grab public variables, An example of why we have this is as follows:

PHP Code: 
    $Template = new Template();
    $Template->Assign('settings',new Settings()); 
Regardless the fact that we have used this object as a static object, the values should still stand so within the template you can now do, lets say.

Code: 
    <html>
        <head>
            <?php echo isset($settings->config_site_title) ? $settings->config_site_title : 'Fallback Title'?>
        </head>
    </html>
And this will only allow you to have access to the public data during the initialized period.

This can get a lot more complex but more system friendly, some examples:

  • A LoadConfig method to automatically parse a config file, xml,php,yaml
  • If you register an shutdown_function you can auto update the DB with new settings.
  • You can auto populated the class with config from that database
  • You can implement iterator's to make it compatible with looping
  • Lots more.
litewarez Reviewed by litewarez on . Creating a simple Object Config system in PHP Creating a config system that's suitable for any website application, this is the way 1 of the ways I use. Why? It has a global scope You can enable / disable changes to protected configs You can add any settings during anywhere within runtime. You can make the class automated to fetch public configs from a file / DB. Rating: 5