Add environment var config to Laravel 4

.env

APP_ENV=local
APP_DEBUG=true

.gitignore

.env

composer.json

{
    "require": {
        "vlucas/phpdotenv": "~1.1"
    }
}

database.php

<?php

// app/config/database.php

return array(
    'connections' => array(
        'mysql' => array(
            'driver'    => 'mysql',
            'host'      => getenv('DB_HOST'),
            'database'  => getenv('DB_DATABASE'),
            'username'  => getenv('DB_USERNAME'),
            'password'  => getenv('DB_PASSWORD'),
            'charset'   => 'utf8',
            'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
            'prefix'    => '',
        ),
    ),
);

start.php

<?php

// bootstrap/start.php

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(function () {

    try {
        Dotenv::load(__DIR__.'/../');
    } catch (Exception $e) {
        // No .env file found
    }

    return getenv('APP_ENV') ? getenv('APP_ENV') : 'production';
});

And a nice helper.

if ( ! function_exists('env'))
{
    /**
     * Gets the value of an environment variable. Supports boolean, empty and null.
     *
     * @param  string  $key
     * @param  mixed   $default
     * @return mixed
     */
    function env($key, $default = null)
    {
        $value = getenv($key);

        if ($value === false) return value($default);

        switch (strtolower($value))
        {
            case 'true':
            case '(true)':
                return true;

            case 'false':
            case '(false)':
                return false;

            case 'null':
            case '(null)':
                return null;

            case 'empty':
            case '(empty)':
                return '';
        }

        return $value;
    }
}