A comprehensive explanation of the WP-config file: the file’s functions, uses, and making the most important modifications

If you are a website owner who mainly uses WordPress, you must have at least once encountered the need to modify the wp-config.php file. Because this file is considered one of the files on which the site’s work and performance in general is built, it is necessary to understand well the codes this file contains and the correct ways to modify them to reach what you want, and this is what we will explain and clarify in detail within this article.

Contents of the article: What is the wp-config file, why modify it

On the WP-config file Basic functions of the wp-config file Additional functions of the WP-config file What is the wp-config.php file and where is it located? Surely you know that during the installation phase of WordPress on the hosting service provider, and in the first step to do so, it requests some data from you to complete the installation phase. That data is (the name of the database - the username of the database administrator - the password of the database administrator) and some other data. This data that is requested during the installation phase, WordPress stores and saves it inside the wp-config.php file so that it is permanently available and accessible if needed.

As you can see in the image above, all the data that is requested and highlighted in red is automatically stored by WordPress in a file called wp-config.php that is automatically created within the WordPress files themselves. Note: Missing the wp-config.php file or an error in its code may cause the entire site to crash and a message “Error establishing a connection to the database” to appear. Therefore, you should not open this file and modify it unless you know well how to modify it correctly and without destroying it.

Where is the wp-config.php file located and how to access and modify it? The wp-config.php file is located inside the main directory where you installed WordPress within the hosting in the file manager. It can be easily accessed in one of the following two ways: The first way is to open the wp-config.php file and modify it from within your hosting manager account. You enter (File Manager) or File manager to open the entire site’s file manager for you, including the WordPress files that you installed on the hosting before.

Click on Public_html to display a diverse list of files, including our own file, wp-config.php, right in front of you. In this case, you can open the file easily by right-clicking on it and choosing Edit. This will show you the file editing page that contains all the codes for the file that you can modify and click “Save” after completing the required modifications.

The second method is to open the wp-config.php file and modify it in

In this way, you can access the site's file manager without opening the file manager from within the hosting itself. To do this, you must download one of the programs that allows communication via the FTP protocol, and the most famous of these programs is FileZilla. After downloading the program, you will be asked for FTP service login information, which you can obtain from your hosting provider. After entering the login data, a window will open for you containing all the site’s files, in which you will also see the Public_html folder, where you enter it to find the wp-config.php file, which you can click on to download and open it using a code editing program, and then upload it again after completing the modification.

Why modify the WP-config file? Before we talk about the purposes for which the wp-config.php file can be modified, we must once again note that modifying this file must be done with great care because this file is responsible for connecting all WordPress files to the databases, and therefore losing it means your site will crash completely. Modifying the wp-config.php file does not require you to be an experienced programmer for several years, but it is enough just to know that this file in general contains some functions that were built using the PHP language and are defined using a function called define that you will find repeated frequently within the file, and the following image shows you that: The basic functions of the wp-config.php file The following are the most important functions that you will need to perform using the WP-config file, and if you do not work on them now, it is expected that you will need to work on them later. 1- Accessing the connection information for the site’s databases, MYSQL Database. You can access the connection information for your site’s database and change it if you wish from within the wp-config.php file with ease. You scroll inside the file and search for this part of the code that contains the connection data to the database: You can preview the code as follows: define( 'DB_NAME', 'wordpress' ); /** MySQL database username */ define( 'DB_USER', 'root' ); /** MySQL database password */ define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'abdo1994' ); /** MySQL hostname */ define( 'DB_HOST', 'localhost' ); /** Database Charset to use in creating database tables.

*/ define( 'DB_CHARSET', 'utf8mb4' ); /** The Database Collate type. Don't change this if in doubt. */ define( 'DB_COLLATE', '' ); This part of the code explains some variables related to database connection information, as: The value DB_NAME: contains the name of the database that is used to store all the data of the WordPress website, transferring articles, users, and other data. The value DB_USER: contains the user name to enter the database. The value: DB_PASSWORD: contains the password to enter the database. Thus, this part of the code contains data related to connecting to databases. You can only modify their values without modifying the names of constants at all, such as DB_NAME, DB_USER, etc.

In order not to cause damage or disruption to the site. 2- Activate Debugging mode. This option is only useful for programmers and developers who want to participate in modifying the source code of WordPress and correcting potential errors. To activate the debugging mode, you can easily do this from within the wp-config file via the following line, where you change the value “False” to the value “True”, thus activating the debugging mode.

define( 'WP_DEBUG', false ); 3- Change the prefix of WordPress tables Table_prefix The table prefix is ​​one of the fields that appears in front of you in the first steps of installing WordPress. This field means that all data tables that are created within your site’s databases will begin their name with the special definition _WP. To change this definition to any other definition for security reasons, since hackers know very well the name of this default definition, you can simply change this definition from within the Wp-config file from the following line of code: $table_prefix = 'wp_'; Here you must change the definition “_WP” to any other definition you want. Note: Changing the table prefix definition is not limited to changing it only from within the Wp-config file, but you must enter the database manager PHPMyadmin and change the names of all tables whose name begins with the definition “_wp” to the new definition or name that you set within the WP-config file.

For example, you will first change the table prefix inside the wp-config.php file from the value “_WP” to the new value “Site”, for example as follows: $table_prefix = 'site'; Now we change the value of the table prefix within the database in the following way from the value “WP” to the new value “site”. We open the site’s database from within PhpMyadmin within your hosting account, and then we click on the WordPress database to open a list of the tables that are within the database, and all the tables begin with “_WP” as you notice in the image: Then you make a Select selection for all those tables that appear in front of you and that begin with “WP” as you notice. After selecting the tables, you will click on “With Selected” as indicated in the image above, and then choose “Replace Table prefix” as also indicated in the image above. The following screen will appear to you: As the image shows, in the “From” box you will write the old value, which is “_wp”, while in the “To” box, you will write the new value, which is “_site”.

Then you click Continue. Thus, the value of the table prefix will be changed successfully, as you can see in the following image: 4- Changing the security authentication codes and keys Authentication Keys and Salts The security of your site’s data, which is stored in cookies, for example, can be increased by setting security authentication codes and keys, or what is known as Authentication Keys and Salts, within the WP-config file. First, if these keys are not mapped within your file, they will look like this: define( 'AUTH_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here' ); define( 'SECURE_AUTH_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here' ); define( 'LOGGED_IN_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here' ); define( 'NONCE_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here' ); define( 'AUTH_SALT', 'put your unique phrase here' ); define( 'SECURE_AUTH_SALT', 'put your unique phrase here' ); define( 'LOGGED_IN_SALT', 'put your unique phrase here' ); define( 'NONCE_SALT', 'put your unique phrase here' ); In this case, you must create these security keys through the WordPress security code generator. When you enter the code materials link, a program code that is automatically generated will appear to you, and its form will be as the following image shows: define('AUTH_KEY', ' g|zDR.=HDDnJth~otb#orW_;F,Gv@[+xL!~1Z2i1(zY;py(B+,=u}dj2z^^zg64'); define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY', '-Z,8RkB{Is?|9br8hYcP_dyzu{xVMw{/+D_F{%0H!P&'); define('AUTH_SALT', 'H?

8MK`o_o)4)+%PAR+?_:Egs,;XxF99B`O:3E)Rf|>j-W:v+4B.-!|E_uCA+.!S6C>s{5vrAzMg62?12Bd?>-}_14p#zLTas{MXdbApqoql S+jA(p;ze.|4#jSu}#.H2&KF_bhy' ); define( 'NONCE_KEY', 'I}ZlX9Tpq^xL?n}PD_.n14/AAi]zculo!Z5+5(UDP&HbszBRZg5GxS${tl2m' ); define( 'SECURE_AUTH_SALT', 'o:1_~:d^EX:=8|vL{cF)+o=xFm#v1