Should we initialize a class object inside the config file?

Question

Is it a good practice to initialize an object for an authentication class that does various stuff like register user, login user etc. inside a config file?

The config file mostly does stuff like setting db username, password and site name etc.

Please provide a reason if you don't find this a standard practice. Just to let you know most of the code is procedural except for this particular class.

    // MySQL connection settings
    $db_host = "localhost";
    $db_user = "someuser";
    $db_pass = "some pass";
    $db_name = "somedb";



    // Name of the site
    $site_name = "MyDomainName";   



    $auth = new auth();//initialize Authentication class
$auth->set_auth();//Check if user autorized

Answer 1

In my opinion this is not a good idea. A config file is for configuration, not for execution. I would put this code into a bootstrap.php, so, when you have to edit your code in the future, you know exactly where you can find your configurations and instantiations.

index.php:

include('bootstrap.php');

bootstrap.php:

include('config.php');
$auth = new auth();
$auth->set_auth();

config.php:

$db_host = "localhost";
$db_user = "someuser";
$db_pass = "some pass";
$db_name = "somedb";

Answer 2

The authentication class should be responsible for authenticating, not handling user-specific functions like register/edit/delete. The config object should be available to object needing the configuration data, not the other way around.

The config file should not contain anything other then config data.