Default active config changed from file storage to DB storage

By pwolanin on 15 April 2014

Change record status:

Published (View all published change records)

Project:

Drupal core

Introduced in branch:

8.x

Introduced in version:

8.x

Issue links:

https://www.drupal.org/node/2161591

Description:

In earlier versions of Drupal 8.x, the active configuration was stored on disk in YAML files, with a cached version (defaulting to the database) used for accessing the values on normal pages.

Now the default configuration is stored in a database table, while import/synchronization and export still operate via YAML files.

There are no API changes, but existing Drupal 8 sites may need to be re-installed or have file-based configuration migrated into the database table.

Benefits of the new approach:

Nobody is ever supposed to edit active configuration files. The presence of the data as files made it look like they can be changed. In reality, they were only touched on configuration writes and accessed from their database cache otherwise. The existence of the files misled people.
The new approach means less YAML file parsing and file stat() comparison needs, resulting in speed improvements.
Not needing to write those YAML files all the time with configuration changes is even faster. This results in easy to feel performance improvements in the installer and while running tests, among other places.
When exporting configuration for working on other sites, it is still possible to export to YAML files in their up-to-date state (on the UI or with drush config-export). This is still the native format for shipping configuration in projects and for syncing configuration.
Not exporting configuration as YAML files by default makes the system more secure: although the prior way of storing configuration in files was as secure as we could make it to be, not storing them as files at all is still more secure.

To get back configuration as files on your development server, see https://drupal.org/project/config_devel

Impacts:

Site builders, administrators, editors

Module developers

Updates Done (doc team, etc.)

Online documentation:

Not done

Theming guide:

Not done

Module developer documentation:

Not done

Examples project:

Not done

Coder Review:

Not done

Coder Upgrade:

Not done

Other:

Other updates done

Comments

This page isn't helping much.

Kartagis

Turkish

Istanbul

commented 24 April 2014 at 08:19

This page isn't helping much. Where do we get our settings?

$config = \Drupal::config('spaces_enforced.settings');
\dpm($config);

didn't return anything.

As the change record says,

Berdir

German

Switzerland

commented 24 April 2014 at 12:52

As the change record says, there is no API change. However, you do need to re-install, and your problem is more likely caused by the move of the default config directory (config/ to config/install)

Loading a Config

tyler.frankenstein commented 29 July 2015 at 03:05

Just toss on a call to the get method, and you'll have access to the config in Drupal 8:
$config = \Drupal::config('field.storage.node.field_address')->get();