Going one level up using "../" in php not working? - php

Question

First of all, there are plenty of questions asked in the same category but none of those problems i face.. so thats why i opened up this question.. and secondly im not php developer... know just basics include, require for header and footer..
this is my directory structure:
xampp>htdocs>website>"folders" and "files"
"folders" are css, sass, js, pictures and projects.
"Projects" folder has projecta.php and projectb.php
"files" are index.php, header.php, footer.php, menu.php
so above is my folder structure.. everything is working great when the files are in root directory.. say for example, including header, menu and footer php in index page is working fine..
so now i wanted to include the header, footer and menu page for projecta in "projects" folder, so i tried this
<?php include "../footer.php"; ?>
it is not working.. look at the below picture
it looks like the css files are not executing..
for more info here is the header snippit
<title><?php echo $page_title; ?></title>
<meta name="description" content="<?php echo $page_des; ?>">
<meta property="og:title" content="<?php echo $page_title; ?>" />
<meta property="og:description" content="<?php echo $page_des; ?>" />
<meta property="og:type" content="website" />
<meta property="og:url" content="http://www.example.com/<?php echo $page_url; ?>" />
and here is menu snippit
<ul>
<a <?php if ($page_nav == 'index.php') { ?>class="active"<?php } ?> href="index.php"><li><h2 class="mt">Home</h2><i>Go to</i></li></a>
<a <?php if ($page_nav == 'about.php') { ?>class="active"<?php } ?> href="about.php"><li><h2 class="mb">About</h2><i>Me</i></li></a>
<a <?php if ($page_nav == 'projects.php') { ?>class="active"<?php } ?> href="projects.php"><li><h2 class="mt">Work</h2><i>My</i></li></a>
<a <?php if ($page_nav == 'contact.php') { ?>class="active"<?php } ?> href="contact.php"><li><h2 class="mb">Contact</h2><i>Me</i></li></a>
</ul>
and this is how i include header and menu in my pages,
<?php
$page_title = "title a";
$page_des = "description a";
$page_url = "index.php";
include "header.php";
?>
<?php
$page_nav = basename($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']);
require "menu.php"; ?>
so someone please help to find a valid answer? yes, i know, you guys will find plenty of mistakes in the code shown above.. but thats okay.. i need answers.. thanks...
found an answer: first of all thanks for everyone who gave thier suggestions.. i tried all the below, but nothing works.. so i found this code works fine.. but the thing is it somewhat looks like the answers by #Dane Caswell and #Scott Dallas.. but i have no idead why thier answer doesnt work and why this one works..! but anyways thank you everyone.. im pasting the answer here cause someone might find it useful..!
<?php
$path = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'];
$path .= "/your directory/common/header.php";
include_once($path);
?>

Answer 1

This problem is because the PHP interpreter has far greater access the file system than just the public_html or htdocs (site root) directory. It has access to all files and folders above the root. Can make it difficult to establish the actual current working directory. PHP will check the current working file location for the file reference before failing. see PHP Docs for include()
Files are included based on the file path given or, if none is given,
the include_path specified. If the file isn't found in the
include_path, include will finally check in the calling script's own
directory and the current working directory before failing.
The the solution I usually use is to define the servers document root using PHP $_SERVER variable. This solution is not completely fool proof as it depends on the server environments' document root configuration.
include($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/footer.php');
I have found that this can also be annoying is you are working on a local server where the public_html or htdocs folder may contain sub folders for each website, like yours for example. The $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] will on most configurations return the absolute path to the server 'public' root, not your websites subfolder. This means you have to add the website folder to the include path.
include($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . 'your_website/footer.php');
This is pretty annoying because it means that when the website is uploaded to a production server it is likely you will not have a additional sub folder for the website, so this include would need changing.
Obviously this is a real pain and not great practice, I afraid I don't know what the solution to that problem would be, albeit I am sure there would be a better way. Hopefully this can help you to get going and maybe someone else can provide (us both) a better practice solution.

Answer 2

This annoys me as well.. You can use
$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']
I like to do this at the top of all my files when I'm starting a new project:
<?php include($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/inc/config.php"); ?>
In my config file, I store lots of variables as useful values that I am going to use throughout my project so I don't have to keep typing $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']
Or you can just stop being lazy like me and use $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] as much as you like :)