PHP - Application config file stored as - ini,php,sql,cached,php class,JSON,php array?

Question

I am trying to decide on the best way to store my applications configuration settings. There are so many options.

The majority of applications I have seen have used

Answer 1

We use a file called Local.php which is excluded from the SCM system. It contains several constants or global variables. For example:

// Local.php
class Setting
{
   const URL = 'http://www.foo.com';
   const DB_User = 'websmith';
}

And it can be referred to anywhere simply by:

Setting::URL

If you need the settings to be writable at runtime, I suggest you use public static variables instead.