Laravel is indeed a powerful PHP framework which comes with a flexible and easy configuration structure to customize the application. In this blog, we will talk about the essential concepts concerning the configuration of an application in Laravel, the configuration files, the environment variables, the service container, among others.

Configuration Files Location in laravel

It is essential to understand that when it comes to the configuration of the Laravel structure, there are configuration PHP files found in the config directory of your application. The configuration files are simply the key-value pairs which are the defining credentials of a system, for example, the database, application URLs, among many others.

Main Configuration Files

Key Configuration Files:

• config/app.php: Nearly all core application configurations, including the application name, the application namespace and service providers, can be found in this file which is essential in the application.
• config/database.php: This file outlines the MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and SQL Server connections used in your application.
• config/mail.php: This file sets the configuration of the mail driver, mail server hostnames, port, username, passwords, and many other settings required for mail security.
• config/services.php: Provides configuration for a number of external services, e.g., for Stripe, Mailgun, etc.

How to Access Configuration Values

There are a number of ways how configuration values can be made available within Laravel:

• Using the config Helper: $value = config('app.name');
• Using the Config Facade: $value = Config::get('app.name');
• Injecting the Config Class:

  class MyController extends Controller {
      public function __construct(Config $config) {
          $this->config = $config;
      }
  
      public function index() {
          $value = $this->config->get('app.name');
      }
  }
                      

Environment Variables

Laravel maintains that API keys and database credentials should be stored in environment variables in order to prevent the accidental leakage of such sensitive configuration data and increase flexibility.

Environment variables can be set using a configuration file called .env which is created in the root of the folder of your project. This file is not version controlled within Git and therefore keeps sensitive information away from prying eyes.

DB_HOST=localhost
DB_DATABASE=my_database
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=secret
            

You can make use of environment variables using the env() function:

$value = env('DB_HOST');
            

The Service Container

A wire of class dependencies and configurations can also be referred to as a Service container in Laravel. It makes it possible to register services and define their bindings which can then be injected into controllers, models, and other classes.

// config/services.php

'mailgun' => [
    'domain' => env('MAILGUN_DOMAIN'),
    'secret' => env('MAILGUN_SECRET'),
],

// app/Providers/AppServiceProvider.php

public function register() {
    $this->app->bind('Mailgun\Mailgun', function() {
        return new Mailgun\Mailgun(config('services.mailgun.secret'));
    });
}