If you've ever used the same codebase for two different environments, you know that switching between the two can be a pain. Luckily, PyroCMS has built-in support for multiple environments

Automatic Base URL

PyroCMS guesses your base URL so you don't have to enter it in as a config and change it when you move from development to production. That means you can launch the same code on your localhost as well as your production server and never have to change the URL.

If you find PyroCMS is not able to guess your base URL, you can add in manually in system/cms/config/config.php by altering the base_url config;

 $config['base_url']    = '';

Multiple Database Environments

PyroCMS can also choose the database based on your environment. Let's say you have two databases - one on your local machine for development, and one on your production server. You can enter in both of the connection details into the system/cms/config/database.php file. The environments available to you are:

• Development
• Staging
• Production

You'll see an array of database connection configuration for each:

 // Development
 $db[PYRO_DEVELOPMENT] = array(
'hostname'      =>  'localhost',
'username'      =>  'root',
'password'      =>  '',
'database'      =>  'pyrocms',
'dbdriver'      =>  'mysql',
'dbprefix'      =>  '',
'active_r'      =>  TRUE,
'pconnect'      =>  TRUE,
'db_debug'      =>  TRUE,
'cache_on'      =>  FALSE,
'char_set'      =>  'utf8',
'dbcollat'      =>  'utf8_unicode_ci',
'port'          =>  3306,

// 'Tough love': Forces strict mode to test your app for best compatibility
'stricton'      => TRUE,
 );

You can tell PyroCMS what environment to load by setting a variable in your .htaccess file using the following syntax:

 SetEnv PYRO_ENV production

This sets a variable called PYRO_ENV that will be read by PyroCMS and used to pull up the right database.

You choices for the value of PYRO_ENV include:

• development
• staging
• production

Each of these corresponds to a database group in your database.php configuration file.

Once you have PyroCMS set up for multiple environments, you can stop worrying about accidentally overwriting configs in git and get coding.

Ignoring Folders with Git

If you have your project with PyroCMS on git, you can ignore files that you shouldn't share between environments by creating a .gitignore file and adding files and folders you want it to ignore to it. Here is a good start for a PyroCMS .gitignore:

system/cms/cache/
system/cms/logs/
.htaccess
uploads/

Note: In some cases you might want to keep your uploads folder under version control. This is just a suggestion for ignored items.