Configure the AWS SDK for PHP Version 3

The AWS SDK for PHP consists of various features and components. Each of the following topics describe the components that are used in the SDK.

The AWS SDKs and Tools Reference Guide also contains settings, features, and other foundational concepts common among many of the AWS SDKs.

Shared config and credentials files

The shared AWS config and credentials files are the most common way that you can specify authentication and configuration for the AWS SDK for PHP. Use these files to store settings that your tools and applications can use across the AWS SDKs and the AWS Command Line Interface.

The shared AWS config and credentials files are plaintext files that reside by default in a folder named .aws that is placed in the "home" folder on your computer. For details on the location of these files, see Location of the shared config and credentials files in the AWS SDKs and Tools Reference Guide.

For all settings that you can store in these files, see Configuration and authentication settings reference in the AWS SDKs and Tools Reference Guide. This reference also covers the precedence of applying settings from alternative sources such as environment variables.

Named profiles

Settings within the shared config and credentials files are associated with a specific profile. With multiple profiles, you can create different settings configurations to apply in different scenarios. One of the profiles is designated as the default profile and is used automatically when you don't explicitly specify a profile to use.

To learn more about setting up named profiles, see Shared config and credentials files in the AWS SDKs and Tools Reference Guide.

You can specify a named profile to use when instantiating a client by using the profile option:

use Aws\DynamoDb\DynamoDbClient;

// Instantiate a client with the credentials from the my_profile_name profile
$client = new DynamoDbClient([
    'profile' => 'my_profile_name',
    'region'  => 'us-west-2',
    'version' => 'latest'
]);