Almost every public CMS out there uses a .php configuration file for the database settings and so on. For example WordPress automatically creates a .php config file when you install it.Why don't they just use a .ini file? PHP already has parse_ini_file() and I'm sure other languages have similar functions.
Why don't public web applications use ini files for configuration
php;cms;configuration
With PHP in particular; the difference between an .ini file and a .conf.php file is negligible.Using PHP directly for configuration has the distinct advantage of only needing to relate to one well-defined, portable syntax for configuration, and the fact that the configuration file is properly code is occasionally useful.Compared to that; an ini file has little to nothing to offer; and include, require and require_once are all well-known and (mostly) well understood.