.pawn constants values not being proxied to source files

[pedropapa]

.pawn constants values not being proxied to source files

[ADRFranklin]

Well you should instead make use of .env files which sampctl autoloads and use the pawn-env plugin https://github.com/dakyskye/pawn-env

Because pawn.json files are generally uploaded to git repositories, we don't recommend storing sensitive information such as database information within them, this is why there exists a system like .env files which are designed to not be uploaded to repositories and are generally excluded in git repos.

[pedropapa]

@ADRFranklin Thanks for your reply, correct, in my real codebase I don't have these constants in the pawn.json file, but rather as docker env vars, in my pawn.json I just have:

{
      "name": "main",
      "includes": ["../../legacy"],
      "args": ["-;+", "-(+", "-O1", "-Z+"],
      "compiler": {},
      "constants": {
        "MYSQL_HOST": "$MYSQL_HOST",
        "MYSQL_PORT": "$MYSQL_PORT",
        "MYSQL_USER": "$MYSQL_USER",
        "MYSQL_PASS": "$MYSQL_PASS",
        "MYSQL_DB": "$MYSQL_DB"
      }
    },

The snippet I posted was just a reproducible example of the issue with sampctl constants. To be fair I couldn't make it work using pawn compiler directly passing the constants as compiler options.

Using env variables also doesn't work. I'll check out the library you provided, cheers.

Also about having database connection configuration versioned: It actually depends on the use case right? I assume you're talking about production environment which I obviously agree, but if I have an integration tests setup on my ci workflow where the database schema is short-lived (created/destroyed during the workflow run) and only accessible from the CI tool (i.e. Github Actions), I don't see any harm or potential security issues, I would end up having something like:

{
....
  "builds": [
    {
      "name": "live",
      "includes": ["../../legacy"],
      "args": ["-;+", "-(+", "-O1", "-Z+"],
      "compiler": {},
      "constants": {
        "MYSQL_HOST": "$MYSQL_HOST",
        "MYSQL_PORT": "$MYSQL_PORT",
        "MYSQL_USER": "$MYSQL_USER",
        "MYSQL_PASS": "$MYSQL_PASS",
        "MYSQL_DB": "$MYSQL_DB"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "tests",
      "includes": ["../../legacy"],
      "args": ["-;+", "-(+", "-O1", "-Z+", "-d3"],
      "compiler": {},
      "constants": {
        "MYSQL_HOST": "127.0.0.1",
        "MYSQL_PORT": "3306",
        "MYSQL_USER": "integration_tests",
        "MYSQL_PASS": "integration_tests",
        "MYSQL_DB": "integration_tests"
      }
    }
  ]
}

[ADRFranklin]

The stuff in constants are passed to the compiler using the symbol params. I use constants all the time specifically for passing the environment, so I only build specific code. Never had a problem doing this or detecting if one exists, so I am not sure what doesn't work for you?

[pedropapa]

@ADRFranklin I have no issues when the constant value is a number, however when it's a string it's defined as empty.

"constants": {
  "MY_CONSTANT_NUMBER": "300", // works
  "MY_CONSTANT_STRING": "test" // will output an empty string when running printf("%s", MY_CONSTANT_STRING);
},