Does PHP allow *.properties file as in Java?

PHP can natively load and parse .ini files using parse_ini_file().

You can also set up constants in an include file using define().

If you're set on XML, look into PHP's XML functionality. The simplest solution is probably to use SimpleXML.

You can also use a PHP file containing an array to store data. Example:

config.php

<?php 
return array(
    'dbhost' => 'localhost',
    'title'   => 'My app'
);

Then in another file:

$config = require 'config.php':
echo $config['title'];

parse_ini_file doesn't have anything to do with *.properties files in Java environments.

I create this function, that does the exact same thing as its equivalent in Java:

function parse_properties($txtProperties) {
    $result = array();
    $lines = split("\n", $txtProperties);
    $key = "";
    $isWaitingOtherLine = false;

    foreach($lines as $i=>$line) {
        if(empty($line) || (!$isWaitingOtherLine && strpos($line,"#") === 0)) continue;

        if(!$isWaitingOtherLine) {
            $key = substr($line,0,strpos($line,'='));
            $value = substr($line,strpos($line,'=') + 1, strlen($line));
        } else {
            $value .= $line;
        }

        /* Check if ends with single '\' */
        if(strrpos($value,"\\") === strlen($value)-strlen("\\")) {
            $value = substr($value, 0, strlen($value)-1)."\n";
            $isWaitingOtherLine = true;
        } else {
            $isWaitingOtherLine = false;
        }

        $result[$key] = $value;
        unset($lines[$i]);
    }

    return $result;
}

This function was first posted on my blog.

Well, you could perfectly put some configuration in a properties file and do the parsing yourself. But in PHP it's not the appropriate format todo so.

I would define some constants and put them in a seperate php config file (like config.php) and include this where needed.

Other options would be to actually put the configuration in a xml file and use a xml library the read it. YAML (php.net) is also a popular option for simple readable configuration.