Valorin.net

Zend Framework Simple .ini Loader

>>Friday, February 12, 2010<<

When I am working on Zend Framework projects I usually find that I am referencing .ini files a lot within my code, which usually means typing the following line many times:

<?php
$oConfig = new Zend_Config_Ini("../application/configs/config.ini");
?>

Although it is simple enough to remember, it does get tedious after a while and I always wondered what the execution time of the code was like calling the same config file multiple times on each load (i.e. in different classes).

A simple way to get around this is to use the Zend_Registry() class and store the config file in the registry on the first load, but unless you load all of the config files initially you end up with lines like:

<?php
if (!Zend_Registry::isRegistered("config.ini"))
    Zend_Registry::set("config.ini", Zend_Config_Ini("../application/config/config.ini"));

$oConfig = Zend_Registry::get("config.ini");
?>

So I decided to find a solution that was quick and simple. The interaction we desire looks like this:

<?php
$oConfig = Val_Config::get("config.ini");
?>

See how much simpler that is to use and remember?
So, how do we do it?

<?php
/****
 *   Val_Config
 *
 *   Simple class for loading Zend_Config_Ini files quickly
 *
 *   @author         Stephen "Valorin" Rees
 *   @version        1.0-thoughts
 *   @url            http://valorin.net/thoughts/view/id/7#Zend_Framework_Simple_Configuration_Class
 */
class Val_Config
{
    /**
     * @var String  Array to store our cached .ini files in
     */
    protected static $aCache;
	

    /**
     * @var String  Default path for the config files
     */
    protected static $sConfigPath = "../application/configs/";


    /**
     * Override the default config file path on-the-fly
     *
     * @param String $sPath Default path, relative to index.php
     */
    public static function setConfig($sPath)
    {
        self::$sConfigPath = $sPath;
    }


    /**
     * Get config.ini file contents
     *
     * @param  String          $sType    The filename of the config file we want to retrieve
     * @param  String          $sName    (optional) the specific section of the config file to return
     * @return Zend_Config_Ini
     */
    public static function get($sType, $sName = null)
    {
        /**
         * Generate the key to store the data under
         */
        $sKey = "{$sType}::{$sName}";


        /**
         * Check if we have the data in our cache array
       	 *  if we don't have any data, load it and store it in the cache
         */
        if (!isset(self::$aCache[$sKey]))
            self::$aCache[$sKey] = new Zend_Config_Ini(self::$sConfigPath.$sType, $sName);
            

        /**
         * Return the cache file contents to the user
         */
        return self::$aCache[$sKey];
    }
}
?>

And there we have a very simple way of loading configuration files. I have expanded this config class to also load and save settings in a database, but that is for another post. I hope you find this useful, and feel free to use it however you'd like.

Note: there is no error checking in this example, so if you throw it dodgy data... it is your own fault if it breaks :)

Tags: scripts, val_config, zend_config_ini, zf