# Where and how to store app wide settings variables?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/where-and-how-to-store-app-wide-settings-variables/65216>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [August 16, 2006, 9:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/where-and-how-to-store-app-wide-settings-variables/65216 "2006-08-16T21:07:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![josh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/45deac/32.png) [@josh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/josh)\
**Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 9:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/where-and-how-to-store-app-wide-settings-variables/65216/1 "2006-08-16T21:07:30Z")

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Hi all

I’d like to know what’s a good way to store app wide settings variables.  
Because for example I have different fields in models that all should be  
20 chars long (validates\_length\_of :maximum =\> 20). I don’t want to  
hard-code that, because in future this could change.

So where should I store such vars? In the environment.rb file in  
constants like…?

MAX\_NAME\_LENGTH = 20

Or are there better ways or even something like a Rails-specific  
construct for such vars?

Thanks for hints. Joshua

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**Author:** ![josh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/45deac/32.png) [@josh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/josh)\
**Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 9:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/where-and-how-to-store-app-wide-settings-variables/65216/2 "2006-08-16T21:18:47Z")

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I don’t know of a standard for such a construct, but I created a  
constants.rb file in the config directory to hold such information. The  
environment.rb file loads (require) the constants file. I wanted this  
separation because there are settings that are server specific (  
environment.rb) and some that are constant (constants.rb) regardless of  
the  
server.

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**Author:** ![josh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/45deac/32.png) [@josh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/josh)\
**Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 10:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/where-and-how-to-store-app-wide-settings-variables/65216/3 "2006-08-16T22:10:37Z")

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Thank you for that suggestion. 🙂