Allow defining core site settings (core/config/config.inc.php) via .env file

[OlegAnTo2000]

Feature request

Summary

Allow defining core site settings (currently stored in core/config/config.inc.php) via .env file or environment variables.

Why is it needed?

Right now, important configuration values are hardcoded in config.inc.php. This causes problems such as:

• Difficulties managing different environments (development, staging, production).
• Sensitive data like database credentials being stored in tracked files.
• Complicated deployments since configs must be manually edited per environment.

Suggested solution(s)

• Load configuration values from .env file first.
• If a value is not defined in .env, fall back to the existing config.inc.php.
• Document supported .env keys (e.g., DB_HOST, DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASS).

Related issue(s)/PR(s)

Not currently related to any existing issues/PRs (to my knowledge).

---

here is a dirty example of how I implemented it, of course, it is probably better to move the class initialization and helper functions to another file. Example implementation (for illustration purposes only):

// require project general composer
require_once dirname(__DIR__, 2) . '/vendor/autoload.php';

// Include .env from project root
$dotenv = Dotenv\Dotenv::createImmutable(dirname(__DIR__, 2));
$dotenv->safeLoad();

// Laravel-like env() function, can use in php/snippet
if (!function_exists('env')) {
	function env($key, $default = null)
	{
		$value = $_ENV[$key] ?? null;
		if ($value === null) return $default;
		if (strtolower($value) === 'true') return true;
		if (strtolower($value) === 'false') return false;
		if (strtolower($value) === 'null') return null;
		return $value;
	}
}


$database_type               = env('DB_TYPE', 'mysql'); 
$database_server             = env('DB_HOST', 'localhost');
$database_user               = env('DB_USER');
$database_password       = env('DB_PASSWORD');
$database_connection_charset = env('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8mb4');
$database_name               = env('DB_NAME');
$table_prefix                = env('DB_PREFIX');
$database_dsn                = 'mysql:host=' . $database_server . ';dbname=' . $database_name . ';charset=' . $database_connection_charset;
$config_options              = ['override_table' => 'MyISAM'];
$driver_options              = [];