The configuration CFC has embedded environment control and detection built-in. Environments can be detected by:

• regex matching against cgi.http_host

• detection of an environmental variable called ENVIRONMENT ( Coldbox 5.2 and higher )

• usage of a detectEnvironment() function

The first option (regex matching) is the easiest to use, but not very reliable if you are using multiple hostnames or commandbox for re-initialization.

Default: Regex matching against cgi.http_host

To detect your environments you will setup a structure called environments in your coldbox configuration with the named environments and their associated regular expressions for its cgi host names to match for you automatically. If the framework matches the regex with the associated cgi.http_host, it will set a setting called Environment in your configuration settings and look for that environment setting name in your CFC as a method by convention. That's right, it will check if your CFC has a method with the same name as the environment and if it exists, it will call it for you. Here is where you basically override, remove, or add any settings according to your environment.

Warning : The environment detection occurs AFTER the configure() method is called. Therefore, whatever settings or configurations you have on the configure() method will be stored first, treat those as Production settings.

environments = {
    // The key is the name of the environment
    // The value is a list of regex to match against cgi.http_host
    development = "^cf2016.,^lucee.,localhost",
    staging = "^stg"
};

The regex match will also create a global setting called "environment" which you can access and use like this:

if ( getSetting('environment') == 'development' ){
    doSomeMajik();
}

In the above example, I declare a development key with a value list of regular expressions. If I am in a host that starts with cf2016, this will match and set the environment setting equal to development. It will then look for a development method in this CFC and execute it.

/**
* Executed whenever the development environment is detected
*/
function development(){
    // Override coldbox directives
    coldbox.handlerCaching = false;
    coldbox.eventCaching = false;
    coldbox.debugPassword = "";
    coldbox.reinitPassword = "";
​
    // Add dev only interceptors
    arrayAppend( interceptors, {class="#appMapping#.interceptors.CustomLogger} );
}

Detection of an environmental variable called ENVIRONMENT

If you are using environmental variables for your different environments, you can specify an environmental variable called ENVIRONMENT and name it staging, development, testing etcetera, depending on the required environment. As in the regex example, a function named after your environment (e.g. staging() or development() ) will be called after your configure method.

Custom Environment Detection

If you are NOT using environmental variables you can use your own detection algorithm instead of looking at the cgi.http_host variable. You will NOT fill out an environments structure but actually create a method with the following signature:

string public detectEnvironment(){
}

This method will be executed for you at startup and it must return the name of the environment the application is on. You can check for any condition which distinguishes your environment from your other environments. As long as you return an environment name based on your own logic it will then store it and execute the method if it exists.