如何使用.htaccess在Laravel 4中选择环境？

Question

I have a site that is in the testing phase, so it connects not to the real data but to a local copy of a database.

My customer needs now a fast link to retrieve some urgent and important pdf reports, so I need to set up another version of the site that links to the "real data".

I can create two environments ("local" and "real") with different database connections, and I would like to give the opportunity to select the environment via the URL (I know it's not pretty from a security point of view, but let's take this for granted).

So I would like to use:

my.ip.address/mysite to use the test db

my.ip.address/mysite/real to use the real db, redirecting to the URLs without the "real folders".

F.ex.: /mysite/real/admin should redirect to /mysite/admin but selecting the "real" environment on Laravel 4.

1. is it possible to pattern-match also folders in Laravel 4 or is it possible only for domains? In other words, does this work?

   $env = $app->detectEnvironment(array(
       'test' => array('*/mysite/*'),
       'real' => array('*/mysite/real/*'),
   ));
   

2. If so, I just can't figure out how to write the .htaccess rule, I've tried

   RewriteRule ^/real(.*)$ $1
   

But it won't work.

Answer 1

I'm not sure if Laravel's internal environment handling works with folders, but it definitely works with subdomains. You could choose to setup your app using two Apache vhosts, one named test.example.local, one named real.example.local and then set the environment option in Laravel like this:

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(array(
    'test' => array('test.example.local'),
    'real' => array('real.example.local'),
));

There's a second option using .htaccess: You could set this in your .htaccess...

SetEnv LARAVEL_ENVIRONMENT test
SetEnv LARAVEL_ENVIRONMENT real

Then you could set your environment in Laravel like so:

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(function()
{
    return $_SERVER['LARAVEL_ENVIRONMENT'];
});