Laravel 5 Application Key

Question

I am new to Laravel. I just started it tonight. Actually, I have the following code:

'key' => env('APP_KEY', 'SomeRandomString'), 

In xampp/htdocs/laravel/blog/config/app.php.
I want to change this key to 32-bit by cmd as:

xampp\htdocs\laravel/blog>php artisan key:generate  

It generates the key but could not replace/update in xampp/htdocs/laravel/blog/config/app.php.

Answer 1

This line in your app.php, 'key' => env('APP_KEY', 'SomeRandomString'),, is saying that the key for your application can be found in your .env file on the line APP_KEY.

Basically it tells Laravel to look for the key in the .env file first and if there isn't one there then to use 'SomeRandomString'.

When you use the php artisan key:generate it will generate the new key to your .env file and not the app.php file.

As kotapeter said, your .env will be inside your root Laravel directory and may be hidden; xampp/htdocs/laravel/blog