What settings to define?

[Pain]

Hi. I'm curious what settings/other things are people usually defining to make their lives a bit easier (i'm talking about constants)?

 

And if possible please give an explanation (why is it useful to define a particular constant).

 

As you can see my list is nothing special, therefore I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

...
define("DB_HOST", "localhost");
define("DB_USER", "user");
define("DB_PASS", "pass");
define("DB", "db_name");
define("BASE_URL", "http://www.something.com");
...

Thanx:)

Edited March 15, 2014 by Pain

[sKunKbad]

My personal opinion is that you should never define a constant that isn't absolutely going to be the same value throughout the application, because it is global in scope. For instance, even your DB connection params might change, because it is possible (and common) to connect to more than one database. I'll usually define a WEBSITE_NAME and an ENVIRONMENT constant. I usually define a constant that is the path to the front controller (index.php). It's pretty common to store most of the website configuration in config files. Check out most of the popular PHP frameworks and you'll usually see them stored in arrays.

[ginerjm]

1 - I have no constants defined.

2 - For the material you presented, the solution is to make a small module of the logon code that you use in any script that needs a db connection by 'include-ing' it.  No need for a constant there either.

 

Of course somebody else is going to refute this practice but to each their own.

[Ansego]

I use them when ever I need to use them multiple times throughout the code. If I use something once or even twice I don't normally use unless it is for security and I am placing them outside the root of my web.