(Zend Framework > Zend_Config) How to avoid using

Question

I don't think that using .ini or .xml file is a good idea with high traffic projects because every page load causes parsing config.ini or .xml file.

Is there any way to replace using .ini/.xml with regular php array as config? Now php ini looks like that...

[production]
phpSettings.display_startup_errors = 0
phpSettings.display_errors = 0
phpSettings.date.timezone = "Europe/London"
includePaths.library = APPLICATION_PATH "/../library"
bootstrap.path = APPLICATION_PATH "/Bootstrap.php"
bootstrap.class = "Bootstrap"
appnamespace = "Application"
resources.frontController.controllerDirectory = APPLICATION_PATH "/controllers"
resources.frontController.params.displayExceptions = 0
resources.db.adapter = PDO_MYSQL
resources.db.params.host = localhost
resources.db.params.username = rob
resources.db.params.password = 123456
resources.db.params.dbname = zf-tutorial
resources.layout.layoutPath = APPLICATION_PATH "/layouts/scripts/"
resources.view.doctype = "XHTML1_STRICT"

[staging : production]

[testing : production]
phpSettings.display_startup_errors = 1
phpSettings.display_errors = 1

[development : production]
phpSettings.display_startup_errors = 1
phpSettings.display_errors = 1
resources.frontController.params.displayExceptions = 1

I want something like this...

<?php

$config = array(
    'production' => array(
        ['phpSettings.display_startup_errors'] => 0,
        ['phpSettings.display_errors'] => 0,
    ),
);

Is it possible? What should I do and how should I tell application to use my own Config.php?

Thank you and sorry for my English.

UPD: I think that passing array to Zend_Application constructor is a right way?

Answer 1

It's best to cache it with at least APC or any opcode cache, processing .ini configuration file with Zend_Config is very CPU extensive, especially when using toArray().

Answer 2

A better method would be to cache the result of parsing php.ini. But I don't think this is actually going to be causing you any problems.

Answer 3

Yes, you can use an array to initialize the data for a Zend_Config object ; take a look at this page of the Zend Framework manual (quoting what's arround Example #1) :

Normally it is expected that users would use one of the adapter classes such as Zend_Config_Ini or Zend_Config_Xml, but if configuration data are available in a PHP array, one may simply pass the data to the Zend_Config constructor in order to utilize a simple object-oriented interface

You should also take a look at Example #2 on the same page (quoting what's arround it) :

It is often desirable to use a pure PHP-based configuration file. The following code illustrates how easily this can be accomplished

Basically, you first create a PHP file that contains the configuration :

// config.php
return array(
  ...
  ...
);

And, then, from another file, use than configuration file :

$config = new Zend_Config(require 'config.php');

But note that doing that, you'll lose the ability to easily modify the configuration, writing it back to the .ini file -- which, depending on your situation, might eventually (or not) be a problem.

A solution that could be used is to cache the Zend_Config data :

• Read it from the .ini file
• Store it to some caching mecanism
• And, for the next pages, load it from cache, instead of re-parsing the .ini file.