Roku Developer Program

[FCF-Ben]

There is one thing that I've been wondering, where do people set their environment variables, and is there anything like best practices. 

For example, we run two data environments, a dev and a production one, and it would make our lifeeasier if we could just have an environment file where we set DATA_SOURCE, and we can set it to something like

DATA_SOURCE="https://www.ourdomain.com/api/dev/v1.01"

Then in the code being able to do something like:

xfer.SetURL="$$DATA_SOURCE$$/get_content"

I looked at the manifest file, and there is a function (or option) called 

uri_resolution_autosub

https://developer.roku.com/en-gb/docs/developer-program/getting-started/architecture/channel-manifes... 

Which works this way, but it seems like a reserved word (or something like that). 

And I guess I can put it in an screengraph XML, but truth to be told, every time I've thought I've understood first thing about data scopes in Roku it throws a curveball and I feel rather lost (I'm also relatively new to Roku development). So was hoping there is a simple way of setting constant variables available anywhere just for environment settings. 

Thank so very much, and sorry if this isn't the right place to ask. 

[renojim]

This is the place to ask, but I don't have a good answer for you.  One method that comes to mind is to save "constants" in the registry right at the start of Main/RunUserInterface and then you can access them anywhere.  It's not very elegant and hardly a simple substitution line the $$$ thing, but it works.

[RokuKC · Accepted solution]

There's at least a few different ways to run dev. vs. production environments.

One is you could write dynamic code to check roAppInfo IsDev(), which will return true for side-loaded channels, and then vary the runtime behavior based on that.

E.g.

appInfo = CreateObject("roAppInfo")
if appInfo.isDev()
    my_url = "http://something.dev"
else
    my_url = "http://something.prod"
end if

If you prefer to control behavior by changing a source file, you can use the manifest file for that.

One option is to use conditional compilation:

https://developer.roku.com/en-gb/docs/references/brightscript/language/conditional-compilation.md 

E.g. in the manifest file put:

bs_const=USE_DEV_SERVER=false

Then in .brs do:

#if USE_DEV_SERVER
    my_url = "http://whatever.dev"
#else
    my_url = "http://whatever.prod"
#end if

You can also put custom key entries in the manifest file, e.g.

my_url=http://something.dev

vs.

my_url=http://something.prod

where you change the manifest file between runs.

Then in code, you can retrieve the configured value using

appInfo = CreateObject("roAppInfo")
my_url = appInfo.GetValue("my_url") 

Note that although I mention it, I don't recommend this approach myself, and it can often cause confusion in development if you mix Roku OS-defined manifest attributes with your own custom entries.

A better approach is to just make your own configuration file, e.g. my_config.json, and read that from your Main function or wherever you need it.

Hope that helps.

[FCF-Ben]

Deleted, because I did not read properly before responding 🙂