In PHP blog platforms, how do I handle configuration and secrets?

When developing a PHP blog platform, managing configuration and secrets securely is crucial to ensure the integrity of your application. Configuration files in your project should be kept out of the webroot and managed correctly to avoid unauthorized access. Using environment variables is an effective way to store sensitive data such as database credentials, API keys, and other secrets indirectly.

Here's an example of how you can handle configuration and secrets in a PHP application:

// Load environment variables from .env file using vlucas/phpdotenv require 'vendor/autoload.php'; $dotenv = Dotenv\Dotenv::createImmutable(__DIR__); $dotenv->load(); $dbHost = $_ENV['DB_HOST']; $dbUser = $_ENV['DB_USER']; $dbPassword = $_ENV['DB_PASSWORD']; $dbName = $_ENV['DB_NAME']; // Create a connection to the database $connection = new mysqli($dbHost, $dbUser, $dbPassword, $dbName); // Check connection if ($connection->connect_error) { die("Connection failed: " . $connection->connect_error); } echo "Connected successfully";

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