Ruby-on-rails – Purpose of “consider_all_requests_local” in config/environments/development.rb

For general application configuration that doesn't need to be stored in a database table, I like to create a config.yml file within the config directory. For your example, it might look like this:

defaults: &defaults
  audiocast_uri_format: http://blablalba/blabbitybla/yadda

development:
  <<: *defaults

test:
  <<: *defaults

production:
  <<: *defaults

This configuration file gets loaded from a custom initializer in config/initializers:

# Rails 2
APP_CONFIG = YAML.load_file("#{RAILS_ROOT}/config/config.yml")[RAILS_ENV]

# Rails 3+
APP_CONFIG = YAML.load_file(Rails.root.join('config/config.yml'))[Rails.env]

If you're using Rails 3, ensure you don't accidentally add a leading slash to your relative config path.

You can then retrieve the value using:

uri_format = APP_CONFIG['audiocast_uri_format']

See this Railscast for full details.

In Rails 3, Application specific custom configuration data can be placed in the application configuration object. The configuration can be assigned in the initialization files or the environment files -- say for a given application MyApp:

MyApp::Application.config.custom_config_variable = :my_config_setting

or

Rails.configuration.custom_config_variable = :my_config_setting

To read the setting, simply call the configuration variable without setting it:

Rails.configuration.custom_config_variable
=> :my_config_setting

UPDATE Rails 4

In Rails 4 there a new way for this => http://guides.rubyonrails.org/configuring.html#custom-configuration