php - Laravel dynamic config settings

Question

I'm using a package within my project and it stores a setting inside config/packagename

I would like to dynamically change this value inside the config file, this is how the file structure looks currently;

<?php

return [
    'view_id' => '118754561',

    'cache_lifetime_in_minutes' => 60 * 24,
];

I would like to change it to something like this -

'view_id' => Auth::user()->id,

Can you do this within the config file, or do you have to store some sort of variable to be updated later within a controller. Is there a way to place these variables in an env file and access these new variables from a controller?

Answer 1

This also is a generic solution to dynamically update your .env file (respective the individual key/value pairs)

1. Change the setting in your config/packagename like so:

return [
    'view_id' => env('VIEW_ID', '118754561'),
    etc...
]

2. Add an initial value into .env:

   VIEW_ID=118754561

3. In an appropriate controller (e.g. AuthController), use the code below and call the function like this: updateDotEnv('VIEW_ID', Auth::User()->id)

   protected function updateDotEnv($key, $newValue, $delim='')
   {
   
       $path = base_path('.env');
       // get old value from current env
       $oldValue = env($key);
   
       // was there any change?
       if ($oldValue === $newValue) {
           return;
       }
   
       // rewrite file content with changed data
       if (file_exists($path)) {
           // replace current value with new value 
           file_put_contents(
               $path, str_replace(
                   $key.'='.$delim.$oldValue.$delim, 
                   $key.'='.$delim.$newValue.$delim, 
                   file_get_contents($path)
               )
           );
       }
   }
   

(The $delim parameter is needed if you want to make this function more generic in order to work with key=value pairs in .env where the value has to be enclosed in double quotes because they contain spaces).

Admittedly, this might not be a good solution if you have multiple users at the same time using this package in your project. So it depends on what you are using this package for.

NB: You need to make the function public of course if you plan to use it from other classes.