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I would like to write a setup script for my PHP application, which dose a minimum requirements check, gets the DB credentials, DB prefix and saves them, creates the db tables and so on. Now I would like to know what is the best practise to write and save the DB credentials? Write them as an array into a .php file and? Or into an XML file?
I don’t think there is a best practise for this, there are so many ways people use configuration files. Some use PHP arrays, some use XML files, some use INI files, some use JSON files and I’m sure some people create proprietary formats.
What you do want to take in account is, where will you store this file. If it is in the document root, people could request it. XML/INI/JSON files are plain-text and by default, will make it easy for people to ‘retrieve’ the file contents. PHP will be parsed server side so just returns an empty page.
Ideally you’d store the configuration file outside of the document root, but not all webhosts allow you to do so. So I’d say, if you want to release an application people can install themselves easily, a PHP file might be the easiest way to go.