Laravel Best Practices: Limiting env Calls to Config Files for Better Performance and Stability

When working with Laravel, it’s essential to be careful with calls to the env function outside of your config files. This is because Laravel uses config caching to optimize performance, and once the configuration has been cached, the .env file will not be loaded.

For example, imagine you have a configuration file config/mail.php that looks like this:

return [
    'driver' => env('MAIL_DRIVER'),
    'host' => env('MAIL_HOST'),
    'port' => env('MAIL_PORT'),
    // ...
];

If you make an env call outside of a config file after the config cache has been generated, it will return null and your code may break as a result.

// This call will work as expected before the config cache is generated
$mailDriver = env('MAIL_DRIVER');

// This call will return null once the config cache is generated
$mailDriver = env('MAIL_DRIVER');

To avoid this issue, it’s best to limit env calls to your config files only. If you need to access environment variables in other parts of your code, consider using a different method such as using the config helper function to read from the config files directly.

For example, you can use the config function to retrieve environment variables like this:

// This call will always work, even after the config cache is generated
$mailDriver = config('mail.driver');

By following this tip, you can help ensure that your Laravel code runs smoothly and without any unexpected errors caused by config caching. This is especially important in production environments where you want to minimize the risk of errors and downtime caused by misconfigured code.

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