How to define custom configuration variables in rails

Question

I was wondering how to add custom configuration variables to a rails application and how to access them in the controller  for e g I wanna be able to define an upload directory in the configuration files say development rb and be able to access it in one of my controllers   Secondly I was planning to have S3 support for uploads in my application  if i wanted to add a yaml file with the s3 access  secret key  how do I initialize it in my Rails App and how do I access the values that I have defined in that config file

User · Answer

In Rails 3  Application specific custom configuration data can be placed in the application configuration object  The configuration can be assigned in the initialization files or the environment files -- say for a given application MyApp   MyApp  Application config custom config variable    my config setting   or  Rails configuration custom config variable    my config setting   To read the setting  simply call the configuration variable without setting it   Rails configuration custom config variable   gt   my config setting   UPDATE Rails 4  In Rails 4 there a new way for this    http   guides rubyonrails org configuring html custom-configuration

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If you use Heroku or otherwise have need to keep your application settings as environment variables  the figaro gem is very helpful

User · Answer

In Rails 4  Assuming you put your custom variables into a yaml file     config acme yml development     api user   joe     api pass   s4cret     timeout  20   Create an initializer to load them     config initializers acme rb acme config   Rails application config for  acme  Rails application configure do   config acme   ActiveSupport  OrderedOptions new   config acme api user   acme config  api user    config acme api pass   acme config  api pass    config acme timeout    acme config  timeout  end   Now anywhere in your app you can access these values like so   Rails configuration acme api user   It is convenient that Rails application config for  acme will load your acme yml and use the correct environment

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Update 1  Very recommended  I m going with Rails Config gem nowadays for the fine grained control it provides   Update2  If you want a quick solution  then check Jack Pratt s answer below   Although my original answer below still works  this answer is now outdated  I recommend looking at updates 1 and 2    Original Answer   For a quick solution  watching the  YAML Configuration File  screen cast by Ryan Bates should be very helpful   In summary     config initializers load config rb APP CONFIG   YAML load file    Rails root  config config yml   Rails env     application rb if APP CONFIG  perform authentication       Do stuff end

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I like to use rails-settings for global configuration values that need to be changeable via web interface

User · Answer

Since Rails 4 2  without additional gems  you can load config hi yml simply by using Rails application config for  hi   For example    touch config passwords yml       config passwords yml     development        username   a        password   b      production        username   aa        password   bb        touch config initializers constants rb       config initializers constants rb AUTHENTICATION   Rails application config for  passwords       and now you can use AUTHENTICATION constant everywhere in your application    rails c production  001 gt  AUTHENTICATION  username     gt   aa   then add passwords yml to  gitignore  echo  config passwords yml  gt  gt   gitignore  create an example file for your comfort cp  config passwords yml  config passwords example yml and then just edit your example file in your production console with actual production values

User · Answer

I really like the settingslogic gem  Very easy to set up and use    https   github com binarylogic settingslogic

User · Answer

Something we ve starting doing at work is the ActiveSupport Ordered Hash  Which allows you to define your configuration cleanly inside the environment files e g   config service   ActiveSupport  OrderedOptions new config service api key   ENV  SERVICE API KEY   config service shared secret   ENV  SERVICE SHARED SECRET

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Check out this neat gem doing exactly that  https   github com mislav choices  This way your sensitive data won t be exposed in open source projects

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This works in rails 3 1   in config environment rb     or in config environments    to target a specific environment      YourApp  Application config yourKey    foo    This will be accessible in controller or views like this   YourApp  Application config yourKey    YourApp should be replaced by your application name    Note  It s Ruby code  so if you have a lot of config keys  you can do this    in config environment rb    YourApp  Application configure do   config something   foo   config        config           config     end

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I just wanted to update this for the latest cool stuff in Rails 4 2  you can now do this inside any of your config      rb files   config x whatever you want   42      and this will be available in your app as   Rails configuration x whatever you want   See more here  http   guides rubyonrails org configuring html custom-configuration

User · Answer

I would suggest good approach how to deal with configuration in your application at all  There are three basic rules    change your configuration not a code  use configurations over conditions  write code that means something    To have more detailed overview follow this link  Rails configuration in the proper way

User · Answer

I created a simple plugin for YAML settings   Yettings  It works in a similar fashion to the code in khelll s answer  but you only need to add this YAML configuration file   app config yetting yml   The plugin dynamically creates a class that allows you to access the YML settings as class methods in your app like so   Yetting your setting   Also  if you want to use multiple settings files with unique names  you can place them in a subdirectory inside app config like this   app config yettings first yml app config yettings second yml   Then you can access the values like this   FirstYetting your setting SecondYetting your setting   It also provides you with default settings that can be overridden per environment   You can also use erb inside the yml file

User · Answer

In Rails 3 0 5  the following approach worked for me   In config environments development rb  write  config custom config key    config value   The value custom config key can then be referenced from other files using  Rails application config custom config key

[ruby-on-rails] How to define custom configuration variables in rails

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