Modes

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It is common practice to run web applications in a specific mode depending on the current state of the project. If you are developing the application, you will run the application in “development” mode; if you are testing the application, you will run the application in “test” mode; if you launch the application, you will run the application in “production” mode.

Slim supports the concept of modes in that you may define your own modes and prompt Slim to prepare itself appropriately for the current mode. For example, you may want to enable debugging in “development” mode but not in “production” mode. The examples below demonstrate how to configure Slim differently for a given mode.

What is a mode?

Technically, an application mode is merely a string of text - like “development” or “production” - that has an associated callback function used to prepare the Slim application appropriately. The application mode may be anything you like: “testing”, “production”, “development”, or even “foo”.

How do I set the application mode?

Heads Up! The application mode may only be set during application instantiation. It may not be changed afterward.

Use an environment variable

If Slim sees an environment variable named “SLIM_MODE”, it will set the application mode to that variable’s value.

<?php
$_ENV['SLIM_MODE'] = 'production';

Use application setting

If an environment variable is not found, Slim will next look for the mode in the application settings.

<?php
$app = new \Slim\Slim(array(
    'mode' => 'production'
));

Default mode

If the environment variable and application setting are not found, Slim will set the application mode to “development”.

Configure for a Specific Mode

After you instantiate a Slim application, you may configure the Slim application for a specific mode with the Slim application’s configureMode() method. This method accepts two arguments: the name of the target mode and a callable function to be immediately invoked if the first argument matches the current application mode.

Assume the current application mode is “production”. Only the callable associated with the “production” mode will be invoked. The callable associated with the “development” mode will be ignored until the application mode is changed to “development”.

<?php
// Set the current mode
$app = new \Slim\Slim(array(
    'mode' => 'production'
));

// Only invoked if mode is "production"
$app->configureMode('production', function () use ($app) {
    $app->config(array(
        'log.enable' => true,
        'debug' => false
    ));
});

// Only invoked if mode is "development"
$app->configureMode('development', function () use ($app) {
    $app->config(array(
        'log.enable' => false,
        'debug' => true
    ));
});