How to set up different environments on Laravel 4?

Question

I am trying to set up multiple environments on a Laravel 4 app, and naturally different Databases depending on which environment we are on.

For my local machine, I set up a virtual host for "local.elders.dev"

Unfortunately, for some reason the following code is not working.

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(array(
    'local' => array('http://local.elders.dev'),
));

Maybe I need to run an artisan command or something else. I feel I am close, but not quite there yet !

Thanks to all !

Answer 1

Another method is to use the name of the folder the project is in. This works in console and web. I found this to be the only reliable way if different environments are hosted on the same server.

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(array(
  'staging'     => strpos(getcwd(), '/staging')>-1, 
  'acceptance'  => strpos(getcwd(), '/acceptance')>-1, 
  'production'  => strpos(getcwd(), '/production')>-1, 
));

A big advantage is that you can move staging to production by simply renaming or copying the project folder without changing files, db records or environment variables.

Answer 2

I know this is answered but for others looking for a solution...

My environment detection setting looks like this:

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(array(

// Development
// any machine name with the term "local" will use the local environment
'local' => array('*local*'),

// Stage
// any machine name with the term "stage" will use the stage environment
'stage' => array('*stage*')

// Production
// production is default, so we don't need to specify any detection

));

This is handy because it will work on any project as long as I use "local" for development (like "localhost", "localhost:8000", "my.app.local", etc.). Same goes for "stage". And production is default so anything without "local" or "stage" works for production.