Zend application.ini

I'd prefer to use native php for Zend configuration. How would I convert this Zend application.ini segment into php?

[development : production]

production section supposedly inherits from development section. P.S we are talking about ZEND framework here.

Update: Looks like I wasn't clear with my question.

All I wanted to know was how Zend_Application handles inheritance/nesting in php options file comparing to ini or xml.

INI config example (everything in production section will be inherited by testing and development section):

[production]
autoloaderNamespaces[] = "My_"
bootstrap.path = APPLICATION_PATH "/Bootstrap.php"
bootstrap.class = "Bootstrap"

[testing : production]
bootstrap.class = "productionBootstrap"

[development : production]
bootstrap.class = "developmentBootstrap"

XML config example (everything in production section will be inherited by staging section, note extends keyword):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configdata>
    <production>
        <webhost>www.example.com</webhost>
        <database>
            <adapter>pdo_mysql</adapter>
            <params>
                <host>db.example.com</host>
                <username>dbuser</username>
                <password>secret</password>
                <dbname>dbname</dbname>
            </params>
        </database>
    </production>
    <staging extends="production">
        <database>
            <params>
                <host>dev.example.com</host>
                <username>devuser</username>
                <password>devsecret</password>
            </params>
        </database>
    </staging>
</configdata>

PHP config example No inheritance/nesting? Is there a way to make inheritance/nesting work without doing manual array merging?

return array(
    'production' => array(
         $test1 => 'aaaaaaa'
     ),
    'staging' => array(
        $test2 => 'bbbbbb'
    ),
    'testing' => array(
        $test3 => 'bbbbbb'
    )

)

UPDATE

In retrospect - just wanted to add that there are certain advantages to using php arrays instead of ini files for configuration: some info

· they can be cached by an opcode cache

· they support constants

· they allow to create easily readable config trees

· they support boolean and integer values

Iam not sure what you mean, but you can simulate this in your php file with your config like this:

$configProduction = array(
    'database' => $db1,
    'url'      => 'www.production.com',
);

$configDevelopment = array(
    'url' => 'www.test.com',
);

//ENV is set in bootstrap or htaccess or php.ini
switch (APPLICATION_ENV) {
    case 'production':
        $config = $configProduction;
        break;
    case 'development':
        $config = array_merge($configProduction, $configDevelopment);
        break;
}

There is a patch to support scalars in Zend_Config.

See

• ZF-2312 - Automatic primitive type detection for Zend_Config

The patch wasn't accepted into trunk for a number of reasons, so there is no guarantee there won't be any side-effects. The patch is also rather old, so it might need some adjustment to make this work with recent versions of Zend_Config.

For getting an idea on how to approach the issue, it might be helpful though.