Write config in Zend Framework with APPLICATION_PATH - zend-framework

Question

For an application I'd like to create some kind of setup-steps. In one of the steps the database configuration is written to the application.ini file. This all works, but something very strange happens: All the paths to the directories (library, layout, ...) are changed from paths with APPLICATION_PATH . to full paths. As you can imagine, this isn't very systemfriendly. Any idea how I can prevent that?
I update the application.ini with this code:
# read existing configuration
$config = new Zend_Config_Ini(
$location,
null,
array('skipExtends' => true,
'allowModifications' => true));
# add new values
$config->production->doctrine->connection = array();
$config->production->doctrine->connection->host = $data['server'];
$config->production->doctrine->connection->user = $data['username'];
$config->production->doctrine->connection->password = $data['password'];
$config->production->doctrine->connection->database = $data['database'];
# write new configuration
$writer = new Zend_Config_Writer_Ini(
array(
'config' => $config,
'filename' => $location));
$writer->write();

Answer 1

Since Zend_Config_Ini uses the default ini scanning mode (INI_SCANNER_NORMAL), it will parse all options and replace constants with their respective values. What you could do, is call parse_ini_file directly, using the INI_SCANNER_RAW mode, so the options aren't parsed.
ie. use
$config = parse_ini_file('/path/to/your.ini', TRUE, INI_SCANNER_RAW);
You will get an associative array that you can manipulate as you see fit, and afterwards you can write that back with the following snippet (from the comments):
function write_ini_file($assoc_arr, $path, $has_sections=FALSE) {
$content = "";
if ($has_sections) {
foreach ($assoc_arr as $key=>$elem) {
$content .= "[".$key."]\n";
foreach ($elem as $key2=>$elem2) {
if(is_array($elem2))
{
for($i=0;$i<count($elem2);$i++)
{
$content .= $key2."[] = ".$elem2[$i]."\n";
}
}
else if($elem2=="") $content .= $key2." = \n";
else $content .= $key2." = ".$elem2."\n";
}
}
}
else {
foreach ($assoc_arr as $key=>$elem) {
if(is_array($elem))
{
for($i=0;$i<count($elem);$i++)
{
$content .= $key2."[] = ".$elem[$i]."\n";
}
}
else if($elem=="") $content .= $key2." = \n";
else $content .= $key2." = ".$elem."\n";
}
}
if (!$handle = fopen($path, 'w')) {
return false;
}
if (!fwrite($handle, $content)) {
return false;
}
fclose($handle);
return true;
}
ie. call it with :
write_ini_file($config, '/path/to/your.ini', TRUE);
after manipulating the $config array. Just make sure you add double quotes to the option values where needed...
Or alternatively - instead of using that function - you could try writing it back using Zend_Config_Writer_Ini, after converting the array back to a Zend_Config object, I guess that should work as well...

Answer 2

I'm guess you could iterate over the values, checking for a match between the value of APPLICATION_PATH, and replacing it with string literal APPLICATION_PATH.
That is if you know that APPLICATION_PATH contains the string '/home/david/apps/myapp/application' and you find a config value '/home/david/apps/myapp/application/views/helpers', then you do some kind of replacement of the leading string '/home/david/apps/myapp/application' with the string 'APPLICATION_PATH', ending up with 'APPLICATION_PATH "/views/helpers"'.
Kind of a kludge, but something like that might work.

Answer 3

This is a long shot - but have you tried running your Zend_Config_Writer_Ini code while the APPLICATION_PATH constant is not defined? It should interpret it as the literal string 'APPLICATION_PATH' and could possibly work.