# My own conf settings

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-own-conf-settings/118516>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [October 28, 2007, 2:28am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-own-conf-settings/118516 "2007-10-28T02:28:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bigdaddy71](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@bigdaddy71](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bigdaddy71)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 2:28am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-own-conf-settings/118516/1 "2007-10-28T02:28:13Z")

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Hi there!

After reading up in the wiki, I was wondering about adding a certain  
configuration variable to my rails app. What’s the “best way to do it”?  
What are you using?

I’m coming from Django, where you have a settings object you import from  
django.conf.settings. This provides for a unique point to check on  
settings. It also makes it easy to fake settings for testing purposes  
using a mock’ed settings object.

What’s the idea behind rails settings? Just global vars? A certain  
object’s properties, like in django? Are they just vars “injected” into  
the environment? Where do I check and maybe alter the settings in  
runtime?

I’m aware that some of the above might not be “the path to light”, but  
my engineer mind needs to understand it all, how it works, in and out.  
And rails is anything but transparent, with all that magic 😉

Thanks everyone!

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**Author:** ![bigdaddy71](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@bigdaddy71](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bigdaddy71)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 2:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-own-conf-settings/118516/2 "2007-10-28T02:47:29Z")

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You can add your own settings to configuration class. Look in your  
config/environment.rb. Here is some documentation on it  
[http://railsmanual.com/class/Rails::Configuration](http://railsmanual.com/class/Rails::Configuration).

-Bill

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bigdaddy71](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@bigdaddy71](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bigdaddy71)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 2:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-own-conf-settings/118516/3 "2007-10-28T02:50:59Z")

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On 2007-10-27 16:52:07 -0700, Chris H.  
[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) said:

> Hi there!
> 
> After reading up in the wiki, I was wondering about adding a certain  
> configuration variable to my rails app. What’s the “best way to do it”?  
> What are you using?

What I do:

# in config/environment.rb

Module Site  
HOME\_PLANET = 3  
end

Then you can call on Site::HOME\_PLANET from anywhere.

Rails 2 also allows for loading config settings from any file under  
config/initializers/ so you can modularize and organize even further.

–Andrew V.