Set Application_ENV via virtual host config and read this in PHP

Since SetEnv set’s the value to Apache’s environment, you can get it with

• apache_getenv — Get an Apache subprocess_env variable

or just

• getenv — Gets the value of an environment variable

If you look at public/index.php in a ZF project, you will see ZF uses getenv:

// Define application environment
defined('APPLICATION_ENV')
    || define('APPLICATION_ENV', (getenv('APPLICATION_ENV') ? 
                                  getenv('APPLICATION_ENV') : 
                                  'production'));

An often use alternative would be to read the Hostname from PHP and define the constant accordingly:

if(!defined('APPLICATION_ENV')) {
    if(FALSE === stripos($_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'], 'www.yourdomain.com')) {
        define(APPLICATION_ENV, 'development');
    } else {
        define(APPLICATION_ENV, 'production');
    }
}

This way, you don’t have to rely on the environment setting at all.