PHP Luminova: Globally Defined Constants

Global constants are fixed values defined once and used throughout the application. They provide consistent, unchangeable references that improve reliability and make your code easier to understand and maintain.

What Are Constants?

• Immutable: Once defined, they cannot be changed during execution.
• Global: Accessible from anywhere in your application.
• Purposeful: Ideal for storing configuration flags, environment states, directory paths, status codes, or commonly reused values.

Using well-named constants reduces magic numbers and strings, making code more readable and self-explanatory.

Scope and Usage

In Luminova, constants are typically declared in:

// /bootstrap/constants.php

This file is loaded early in the application lifecycle, ensuring your constants are available globally — before controllers, models, or routes are executed.

Custom Constants

If you want to define your own constants:

1. Add them to:

// /app/Utils/Global.php

2. Enable procedural loading by setting the following in your .env file:

feature.app.dev.functions = true

This allows Luminova to load procedural functions and constants during bootstrapping, so your custom constants are globally accessible.

Example:

// /app/Utils/Global.php

defined('IS_ACTIVE') || define('IS_ACTIVE', false);
defined('UPLOAD_PATH') || define('UPLOAD_PATH', __DIR__ . '/../public/uploads/');

These values are now globally accessible anywhere in your app.

Default Constants

These are predefined constants provided by Luminova. They are automatically derived from your application's configuration and environment settings. These constants give global access to important values such as file paths, URLs, environment modes, and application metadata, making it easier to reference them across your project without repeating logic.

Status Codes

I/O Streams

Application

Environment

File Paths

URLs

Database Fetch Modes

The FETCH_* constants define how individual rows are fetched from a query result.They are consistently supported across both PDO and MySQLi drivers in methods that allow specifying a fetch mode.

Tip:

• Use FETCH_ASSOC for clean array access like $row['email'].
• Use FETCH_OBJ or FETCH_CLASS when working with object-oriented access.
• FETCH_KEY_PAIR is ideal for dropdown lists or ID-to-name mappings.

Database Result Return Modes

The following RETURN_* constants define how query results are returned.They are supported consistently across both PDO and MySQLi drivers and are mainly used with the fetch() and getResult() methods.

Tip:Use RETURN_ALL for full result sets, RETURN_NEXT for single records, and RETURN_STREAM for efficient memory usage in large datasets.

Database Param Types

The following PARAM_* constants are shared between PDO and MySQLi and standardize the way values are bound to prepared statements:

Type Mapping

This table shows how each PARAM_* constant maps to native types in PDO and MySQLi drivers:

Note: PDO does not natively support float types, so PARAM_FLOAT is internally cast to string (PDO::PARAM_STR).