[development] How implement global variables that vary depending on the server (i.e. production, test, demo) within Drupal?

[António P. P. Almeida]

On 17 Mar 2011 17h40 WET, mitchelljj98 at gmail.com wrote:

> [1 <text/plain; ISO-8859-1 (7bit)>] For java webapps within Apache
> Tomcat I use a web.xml file which contains the global variables that
> are specific to that server so that the production server will have
> one web.xml file and the test server will have a different web.xml
> file.
>
> How can I do something similar for global variables that vary
> depending on the server (i.e. production, test, demo) within Drupal?

Several ways to do that.

1. There's the approach of using a diferent setting.php with a
   conditional inclusion as already described in this thread.

2. There's the approach of using a *single* settings.php file and
   instead do the conditional logic inside where you set the global
   variables you want. Use drush to activate/deactivate the settings.

   drush vset mysite_dev 1

   This creates a variable that can be used in a if like:

   // Do site specific stuff here.
   if (variable_get('mysite_dev', 0)) {
     /* do stuff for dev site */
   }

   You can use drush vdel to delete the variable.

   If you want to have a more structured approach create constante like
   like this:

   define('MYSITE_DEV', 1);
   define('MYSITE_STAGE', 2);
   define('MYSITE_PROD', 3);

   and do:

   drush vset mysite_version 1 

   for making it dev

   if (variable_get('mysite_version' 0) == MYSITE_DEV) {
     /* do stuff for dev site */
   }

   and so on for the other versions.

--- appa