What is the purpose of the hosts file in PHP development?

The hosts file in PHP development is used to map domain names to IP addresses locally. This can be helpful when testing websites or applications before they are live on a server, as it allows developers to access a site using a custom domain name that is not publicly available. By editing the hosts file, developers can create aliases for localhost or other IP addresses, making it easier to work with multiple projects on the same machine. 

// Example of how to add an entry to the hosts file in PHP
$hostFilePath = '/etc/hosts'; // Path to the hosts file
$customDomain = 'example.local'; // Custom domain name
$ipAddress = '127.0.0.1'; // Localhost IP address

// Append a new entry to the hosts file
file_put_contents($hostFilePath, $ipAddress . ' ' . $customDomain . PHP_EOL, FILE_APPEND);

Keywords

hosts file PHP development DNS resolution local development IP address

Related Questions