Let’s look at 3 simple methods to check if debug mode is enabled in a Laravel project.
Check .env file
Let’s start with the first and the most obvious one.
Open the .env file and check the APP_DEBUG variable.
If you choose to change its value, then don’t forget to run the following command to clear out the configuration cache:
php artisan config:cache
App Facade & helper function
Let’s switch to a more programmatic way of checking if debug mode is enabled.
The App Facade provides the hasDebugModeEnabled() method.
In a similar fashion, we can use the app() helper function to get an instance of Application Class that provides the same method.
config() helper function
The config() helper function can also determine if debug mode is enabled.
config('app.debug'); // returns bool
Performance
All 3 methods do their job, but let’s see which one is faster.
Performance-wise, the config() helper is slightly faster.
Happy coding 😊
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