In my php project I try to include another file. However, I find it very confusing how the include statement works.
e.g.
I include the file HelperFile.php in index.php. Both files are in the same directory.
This works: include 'HelperFile.php' but this doesn't include '/HelpferFile.php' & include './HelpferFile.php'
The warning I receive:
PHP Warning include(/HelperFile.php): failed to open stream
Out of curiosity I created a folder and moved my file HelperFile.php into it and nothing changed. Everytime I tried to use the relative path with ./, ../ or /I received a warning.
Can someone explain me what's going on. I'm still learning and can'f figure out what's happening right now.
PHP isn't so great with relative paths, it generally prefers absolute paths. The easiest way around this is to use the DIR magic constant which returns the current directory of the file you're currently in.
So, for instance, you can do include(__DIR__ . '/HelperFile.php'); which would be in the current directory.
However say you had a file in a folder up you can do
include(__DIR__ . '/../MyOtherFile.php');
PHP Doc says
If a path is defined — whether absolute (starting with a drive letter
or \ on Windows, or / on Unix/Linux systems) or relative to the
current directory (starting with . or ..) — the include_path will be
ignored altogether. For example, if a filename begins with ../, the
parser will look in the parent directory to find the requested file.
If you use . or .. will ignored for relative path Also use ../ for parent directory.
I'm having a spot of bother with php includes. I have the following file structure
htdocs
index.php
login.php
php_includes
db_conx.php
check_user_status.php
within the db_conx.php file i've creates a variable $number = 10; for testing.
The db_conx file is included in the check_user_status.php file with the following code:
include_once("db_conx.php");
and that is working fine - i.e. i can echo $number and get 10.
However, I'm including the check_user_status.php file at the top of login.php with this code:
include_once("php_includes/db_conx.php");
and on this page I'm unable to echo out $number on this page (check_user_status.php).
I'm going to need this script included in many pages (since it checks whether the user is logged in or not). Am I doing something strange with the paths?
For relative paths you need to do this.
include_once("../php_includes/db_conx.php");
To break this down.
Your Current working directory is initially going to be htdocs/ if your hit that file in your browser.
the .. back you up one directory level (so the directory that contains both htdocs and php_includes)
then you want to follow down php_includes to get to db_conx.php.
This will become a problem when you do a file in a subdirectory. Assuming you and a page2.php to a htdocs/subpages/
Now if we follow those same steps we are not going to arrive at the same location.
A better approach is to get the path relative to an absolute location. I like using the document root (htdocs in your case), so:
include($_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"]."/../php_includes/db_conx.php");
will refer to the same place on the file system regardless of where it is used.
I think you can use __DIR__ magic constant
The directory of the file. If used inside an include, the directory of the included file is returned. This is equivalent to dirname(FILE). This directory name does not have a trailing slash unless it is the root directory. (Added in PHP 5.3.0.)
This will help you with nested included files, infact the file path will be always set automatically and you don't have to deal with absolute paths.
If your file structure is correct, assuming that php_includes is NOT a directory within htdocs, you would need to do:
include_once("../php_includes/db_conx.php");
I have a site where the PHP include path is /usr/share/php
Within this path I have a sub-folder containing some utility files, e.g. /usr/share/php/utils. my_session.php is one of these utility files.
My application calls
require ("my_session.php");
and this works even though the file is actually within the utils folder.
I am trying to replicate this site in another installation and I am getting the error:
Failed opening required 'my_session.php' (include_path='.:/usr/share/php)
My question is:
Should the php include path also include files in sub-folders in the include path?
This appears to be the case on my original site and I don't know why the behaviour seems to be different on the second site.
According to PHP documentation when you try to include a file, only paths listed in the include_path directive are checked. PHP is not supposed to check their subfolders.
My guess would be that this fails because you are using a relative path for the require.
Your include_path is defined as .:/usr/share/php. That means only two folders will be checked when require('my_session.php') gets executed:
the current path
the folder /usr/share/php
I don't know your folder structure, so let's just imagine one:
my_project
- app
-- index.php
- lib
-- my_session.php
Now, if my_project/app/index.php tries to require('my_session.php') this will fail, because the current folder at the time executing the require is my_project/app/ and there is no file entry of my_session.php relative to my_project/app/ (it's relative to my_project/lib/ instead).
Long story short: Try to to use an absolute path instead of your relative one, e.g.
require('/var/www/html/my_project/lib/my_session.php');
Edit: removed and its subfolders, which was wrong. Too much __autoload in my brain^^
Two solutions:
Add /usr/share/php/utils to your include_path.
or
Include your file with require ("utils/my_session.php");
What is set_include_path Relative to, in PHP? Is it the folder where the PHP.exe resides? Is it the webroot? In other words, what folder would set_include_path('/') or set_include_path('.') be referring to?
Relative paths are resolved from the location of the file where include or another function that uses include_path is used in (see description of include_path):
Using a . in the include path allows for relative includes as it means the current directory. However, it is more efficient to explicitly use include './file' than having PHP always check the current directory for every include.
/ would describe the root of your filesystem and . the current directory.
The filesystem root and the current directory, respectively.
set_include_path("/") would make the include path be the root folder of the filesystem, and I would take a guess that you'd probably not want to do that as there might be issues with exposing files that you don't want to be seen.
If your php file was /home/users/joebloggs/htmlroot/index.php, then set_include_path(".") would make the include path the directory that the php file is in, ie the "htmlroot" directory.
On *nix systems and Windows Apache the / is the root of the file system. While on IIS / points to the root of the vhost.
What I do to handle this is define a LOC constant in my index.php so I never get confused when including files.
define('LOC', dirname(__FILE__));
include(LOC . '/files/file.php');
In HTML, I can find a file starting from the web server's root folder by beginning the filepath with "/". Like:
/images/some_image.jpg
I can put that path in any file in any subdirectory, and it will point to the right image.
With PHP, I tried something similar:
include("/includes/header.php");
...but that doesn't work.
I think that that this page is saying that I can set include_path once and after that, it will be assumed. But I don't quite get the syntax. Both examples start with a period, and it says:
Using a . in the include path allows for relative includes as it means the current directory.
Relative includes are exactly what I don't want.
How do I make sure that all my includes point to the root/includes folder? (Bonus: what if I want to place that folder outside the public directory?)
Clarification
My development files are currently being served by XAMPP/Apache. Does that affect the absolute path? (I'm not sure yet what the production server will be.)
Update
I don't know what my problem was here. The include_path thing I referenced above was exactly what I was looking for, and the syntax isn't really confusing. I just tried it and it works great.
One thing that occurs to me is that some people may have thought that "/some/path" was an "absolute path" because they assumed the OS was Linux. This server is Windows, so an absolute path would have to start with the drive name.
Anyway, problem solved! :)
What I do is put a config.php file in my root directory. This file is included by all PHP files in my project. In that config.php file, I then do the following;
define( 'ROOT_DIR', dirname(__FILE__) );
Then in all files, I know what the root of my project is and can do stuff like this
require_once( ROOT_DIR.'/include/functions.php' );
Sorry, no bonus points for getting outside of the public directory ;) This also has the unfortunate side affect that you still need a relative path for finding config.php, but it makes the rest of your includes much easier.
One strategy
I don't know if this is the best way, but it has worked for me.
$root = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'];
include($root."/path/to/file.php");
The include_path setting works like $PATH in unix (there is a similar setting in Windows too).It contains multiple directory names, seperated by colons (:). When you include or require a file, these directories are searched in order, until a match is found or all directories are searched.
So, to make sure that your application always includes from your path if the file exists there, simply put your include dir first in the list of directories.
ini_set("include_path", "/your_include_path:".ini_get("include_path"));
This way, your include directory is searched first, and then the original search path (by default the current directory, and then PEAR). If you have no problem modifying include_path, then this is the solution for you.
There is nothing in include/require that prohibits you from using absolute an path.
so your example
include('/includes/header.php');
should work just fine. Assuming the path and file are corect and have the correct permissions set.
(and thereby allow you to include whatever file you like, in- or outside your document root)
This behaviour is however considered to be a possible security risk. Therefore, the system administrator can set the open_basedir directive.
This directive configures where you can include/require your files from and it might just be your problem.
Some control panels (plesk for example) set this directive to be the same as the document root by default.
as for the '.' syntax:
/home/username/public_html <- absolute path
public_html <- relative path
./public_html <- same as the path above
../username/public_html <- another relative path
However, I usually use a slightly different option:
require_once(__DIR__ . '/Factories/ViewFactory.php');
With this edition, you specify an absolute path, relative to the file that contains the require_once() statement.
Another option is to create a file in the $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] directory with the definition of your absolute path.
For example, if your $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] directory is
C:\wamp\www\
create a file (i.e. my_paths.php) containing this
<?php if(!defined('MY_ABS_PATH')) define('MY_ABS_PATH',$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'MyProyect/')
Now you only need to include in every file inside your MyProyect folder this file (my_paths.php), so you can user MY_ABS_PATH as an absolute path for MyProject.
Not directly answering your question but something to remember:
When using includes with allow_url_include on in your ini beware that, when accessing sessions from included files, if from a script you include one file using an absolute file reference and then include a second file from on your local server using a url file reference that they have different variable scope and the same session will not be seen from both included files. The original session won't be seen from the url included file.
from: http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.include.php#84052
hey all...i had a similar problem with my cms system.
i needed a hard path for some security aspects.
think the best way is like rob wrote. for quick an dirty coding
think this works also..:-)
<?php
$path = getcwd();
$myfile = "/test.inc.php";
/*
getcwd () points to:
/usr/srv/apache/htdocs/myworkingdir (as example)
echo ($path.$myfile);
would return...
/usr/srv/apache/htdocs/myworkingdir/test.inc.php
access outside your working directory is not allowed.
*/
includ_once ($path.$myfile);
//some code
?>
nice day
strtok
I follow Wordpress's example on this one. I go and define a root path, normally the document root, and then go define a bunch of other path's along with that (one for each of my class dirs. IE: database, users, html, etc). Often I will define the root path manually instead of relying on a server variable.
Example
if($_SERVER['SERVERNAME'] == "localhost")
{
define("ABS_PATH", "/path/to/upper/most/directory"); // Manual
}
else
{
define("ABS_PATH, dirname(__FILE__));
// This defines the path as the directory of the containing file, normally a config.php
}
// define other paths...
include(ABS_PATH."/mystuff.php");
Thanks - this is one of 2 links that com up if you google for php apache windows absolute path.
As a newbie to intermed PHP developer I didnt understand why absolute paths on apache windopws systems would be c:\xampp\htdocs (apache document root - XAMPP default) instead of /
thus if in http//localhost/myapp/subfolder1/subfolder2/myfile.php I wanted to include a file from http//localhost/myapp
I would need to specify it as:
include("c:\xampp\htdocs\myapp\includeme.php")
or
include("../../includeme.php")
AND NOT
include("/myapp/includeme.php")
I've come up with a single line of code to set at top of my every php script as to compensate:
<?php if(!$root) for($i=count(explode("/",$_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]));$i>2;$i--) $root .= "../"; ?>
By this building $root to bee "../" steps up in hierarchy from wherever the file is placed.
Whenever I want to include with an absolut path the line will be:
<?php include($root."some/include/directory/file.php"); ?>
I don't really like it, seems as an awkward way to solve it, but it seem to work whatever system php runs on and wherever the file is placed, making it system independent.
To reach files outside the web directory add some more ../ after $root, e.g. $root."../external/file.txt".