I have a folder with a bunch of articles that all use the same header and footer, which are in an includes/ folder. I also needed to add another file that is not an article and I therefore do not want it in the folder with the other articles, but instead in the includes/ folder. I still want it to use the same header and footer as the articles though, so naturally I just use a command like
include 'article_header.php';
The error is inside the header, which has include commands inside of it. Because the article_header.php file is built for the articles, the include commands inside of it look like the following:
<?php
include 'includes/article_social_container.php';
include 'includes/article_search_container.php';
include 'includes/membership_container.php';
?>
Since this obviously is not going to work for the file inside the includes/ folder. So I tried using a forward slash and starting from the root directory so it works for any file that uses it.
<?php
include '/root/folder/includes/article_social_container.php';
//other code
?>
However, this does not seem to work. I have had trouble with the forward slash at the beginning of a file path in the past, but it has also worked for me other times.
Also, why wouldn't someone always use a forward slash and start at the root directory, just to keep things safe? It probably is the answer to this question because it seems totally sensible to me unless it was for a similar purpose of the open_basedir() function in php.
Thanks a lot for any help.
Take a look at the __DIR__ magic constant. It resolves to the directory of the script in which it appears. Using this, you only need to use relative paths, for example...
// within the "includes" directory
include __DIR__ . '/article_social_container.php';
Another option is to configure your application's include_path. Say you have a script bootstrap.php in your includes directory with the following...
set_include_path(implode(PATH_SEPARATOR, [
__DIR__, // the "includes" directory
get_include_path()
]));
This will add the includes directory to the top of your include_path stack. You can then simply do the following from any other script...
require_once __DIR__ . '/relative/path/to/includes/bootstrap.php';
include 'article_header.php';
Any included scripts from this point on will have the same include_path configuration so they in turn can simply use...
include 'article_social_container.php';
include 'article_search_container.php';
// etc
Related
Looking for a way of allowing my links and include URLs etc to work on my local machine correctly as well as on my live site.
I have for example a common.php file which contains my DB connection.
I also have a init.php file which is included on every page and inside that includes the common.php file (among others)
For now, i have used
include './common.php';
However, if i am in a page e.g. web/settings
the ./ points to the settings folder.
What should i be using as a relative URL that will work across the whole site no matter what folder etc?
How about /? It refers to the base, and from there you can use the absolute path:
include "/absolute/path/to/file/common.php";
A relative URL is always affected by the current directory, and you can't make it the same no matter where you are on the site. You need to use absolute paths.
You could use $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] for this.
set_include_path( get_include_path() . PATH_SEPARATOR . $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] );
// Now, you can specify your path relative to your DOCUMENT_ROOT.
include('common.php'); // Assuming your common.php file is in your root path.
You'll find it alot more convenient using namespaces though, so you might want to go down that road.
the quick answer for a path is this.
__DIR__ = current working directory so If you have MVC type architecture ( single point of entry aka front controller, basically everything starts off in one file, typically index.php, and the rest are included ) you can just define a constant like this in that main file.
define( 'BASE_PATH', __DIR__.'/' );
So if you have like this
root
index.php //define basepath
includes :
other.php
template :
temp.php
in other you can just do
include BASE_PATH . 'template/temp.php';
everything will be tied by that one base set in the main index.php file, and as long as the folder i put above as root contains everything you can move that where ever you want because of the dynamic part __DIR__
The long answer is to use a PSR-0 autoloader but that might be a bit overkill.
As a side not if you are on PHP < 5.3 use this instead of __DIR__
dirname(__FILE__)
I am trying to get my include() functions in order but everytime I switch the syntax in one directory it messes up its subdirectory and vice versa.
I have a file called 'header.php' in my 'localhost/FTS/includes/header.php' folder.
The 'FTS' folder has my index.php file so it is technically my root folder while I am testing.
In the file 'localhost/FTS/admin.php' I use the line include 'includes/header.php'; and it works fine but then when I go into the file 'localhost/FTS/admin/members.php' the include file is not found. Also inside of my 'header.php' file I include a couple more files from my root directory.
I just want all of my includes to work from each directory. Any ideas?
The include statement includes files relative to the script executing include, which is why you're seeing this issue. You have a couple of options available to you:
You can preface your include path with something like $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'], which if you're using Apache, will reference your document root directory. So something like include( $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/includes/header.php" ); will appear to the script as an absolute path, so it will work if called from various places in your structure, but still be portable (note that it would require being called from a web server, this won't work if you're using your scripts through CLI).
You can create some sort of placeholder at the root of your directory structure, and work your way up until you find it, then consider this the root and make your include statements relative to this. This will be more portable and work in CLI mode, but it will be slightly more resource intensive.
You can use different include statements depending on where you're script including the include file is located, such as include( "includes/header.php" ); if the file you're including is in the includes directory of the directory you're currently in, or include( "../includes/header.php" ); if the includes directory is in the parent directory of the script being run.
I have a directory root:
index.php
includes/
template.php
testfile.php
phpFiles/
processInput.php
testfile.php
index.php:
require_once("includes/template.php");
template.php:
require_once("includes/phpFiles/processInput.php")
processInput.php:
require_once("testfile.php")
require_once("../testfile.php")
This code will work when you run index.php, of course it will not work when you run template.php.
As you can see, index.php includes template.php like normal. But in template.php, you have to include like if you are in the directory that index.php is in. But then, in processInput.php, you include as if you are in the directory that processInput.php is in.
Why is this happening, and how can I fix it so that the include path is always the directory of the file that the require is done in? The second included file have the same include path as the requested file, but the next one does not.
Thanks for your help!
EDIT: The strange thing is that I've included classes in a class folder. And it included other files as it is supposed to, even though the paths are relative. WHY does this happen, and how can I fix it?
VERY IMPORTANT EDIT: I just realized that all this is because in my example, the inclusion in includes/phpFiles/processInput.php includes a file in the same directory: require_once("file in same dir.php"); This is the reason. If you are including a file with out specifying anything more than the filename, the include_path is actually the dir where the file the require is written in is in. Can anyone confirm this?
Use an absolute path.
require_once($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/includes/phpFiles/processInput.php");
Use a similar form for all your required files and they will work no matter where you are.
You can do this in a few ways, amongst others:
Use set_include_path to control the directories from where to perform require() calls.
Define a common absolute base path in a constant that you define in index.php and use that in every require() statement (e.g. require(BASEPATH . '/includes/template.php')).
Use relative paths everywhere and leverage dirname(__FILE__) or __DIR__ to turn them into absolute paths. For instance: require(__DIR__ . '/phpFiles/processInput.php');
By default, the current working directory is used in the include path; you can verify this by inspecting the output of get_include_path(). However, this is not relative to where the include() is made from; it's relative to the main executing script.
You're using relative paths. You need to use absolute paths: $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].
When you include/require, you are basically temporarily moving all code from one file, to another.
so if file1.php (which is located in root) contains:
require("folder/file.php");
and you include file1.php in file2.php (which is in a different location (say folder directory for example):
file2.php:
require("../file1.php");
Now all of file1.php code is in file2.php. So file2.php will look like this:
require("../file1.php");
require("folder/file.php");//but because file2.php is already in the `folder` directory, this path does not exist...
index.php:
require_once("includes/template.php");
template.php:
require_once("includes/phpFiles/processInput.php")
Your directory structure is off. The file inclusion is being seen from the file you're using it from. So, "template.php" is looking for an "includes/" folder in its current folder (/includes/).
As others are saying, use absolute paths, which will make sure you're always going at it from the file system root, or use:
require_once("phpFiles/processInput.php")
In your template.php file (which is far more likely to break if you ever move things around, which is why others all recommend using absolute paths from the file system root).
BTW, if you're using "index.php" as some kind of framework system, you can consider defining a variable that stores the address of common files such as:
define('APPLICATION_PATH', realpath(dirname(__FILE__));
define('PHPFILES_PATH', APPLICAITON_PATH . '/includes/phpFiles/');
I have seen this:
<?php
include( dirname(__FILE__) . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . 'my_file.php');
?>
Why would I ever need to do this? Why would I go to the trouble of getting the dirname and then concatenating that with a directory separator, and a new filename?
Is the code above not equivalent to this:
<?php
include( 'my_file.php' );
?>
??
The PHP doc says,
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 include() construct will emit a warning if it cannot find a file; this is different behavior from require(), which will emit a fatal error.
Let's say I have a (fake) directory structure like:
.../root/
/app
bootstrap.php
/scripts
something/
somescript.php
/public
index.php
Now assume that bootstrap.php has some code included for setting up database connections or some other kind of boostrapping stuff.
Assume you want to include a file in boostrap.php's folder called init.php. Now, to avoid scanning the entire include path with include 'init.php', you could use include './init.php'.
There's a problem though. That ./ will be relative to the script that included bootstrap.php, not bootstrap.php. (Technically speaking, it will be relative to the working directory.)
dirname(__FILE__) allows you to get an absolute path (and thus avoid an include path search) without relying on the working directory being the directory in which bootstrap.php resides.
(Note: since PHP 5.3, you can use __DIR__ in place of dirname(__FILE__).)
Now, why not just use include 'init.php';?
As odd as it is at first though, . is not guaranteed to be in the include path. Sometimes to avoid useless stat()'s people remove it from the include path when they are rarely include files in the same directory (why search the current directory when you know includes are never going to be there?).
Note: About half of this answer is address in a rather old post: What's better of require(dirname(__FILE__).'/'.'myParent.php') than just require('myParent.php')?
I might have even a simpler explanation to this question compared to the accepted answer so I'm going to give it a go: Assume this is the structure of the files and directories of a project:
Project root directory:
file1.php
file3.php
dir1/
file2.php
(dir1 is a directory and file2.php is inside it)
And this is the content of each of the three files above:
//file1.php:
<?php include "dir1/file2.php"
//file2.php:
<?php include "../file3.php"
//file3.php:
<?php echo "Hello, Test!";
Now run file1.php and try to guess what should happen. You might expect to see "Hello, Test!", however, it won't be shown! What you'll get instead will be an error indicating that the file you have requested(file3.php) does not exist!
The reason is that, inside file1.php when you include file2.php, the content of it is getting copied and then pasted back directly into file1.php which is inside the root directory, thus this part "../file3.php" runs from the root directory and thus goes one directory up the root! (and obviously it won't find the file3.php).
Now, what should we do ?!
Relative paths of course have the problem above, so we have to use absolute paths. However, absolute paths have also one problem. If you (for example) copy the root folder (containing your whole project) and paste it in anywhere else on your computer, the paths will be invalid from that point on! And that'll be a REAL MESS!
So we kind of need paths that are both absolute and dynamic(Each file dynamically finds the absolute path of itself wherever we place it)!
The way we do that is by getting help from PHP, and dirname() is the function to go for, which gives the absolute path to the directory in which a file exists in. And each file name could also be easily accessed using the __FILE__ constant. So dirname(__FILE__) would easily give you the absolute (while dynamic!) path to the file we're typing in the above code. Now move your whole project to a new place, or even a new system, and tada! it works!
So now if we turn the project above to this:
//file1.php:
<?php include(dirname(__FILE__)."/dir1/file2.php");
//file2.php:
<?php include(dirname(__FILE__)."/../file3.php");
//file3.php:
<?php echo "Hello, Test!";
if you run it, you'll see the almighty Hello, Test!! (hopefully, if you've not done anything else wrong).
It's also worth mentioning that from PHP5, a nicer way(with regards to readability and preventing eye boilage!) has been provided by PHP as well which is the constant __DIR__ which does exactly the same thing as dirname(__FILE__)!
Hope that helps.
I used this below if this is what you are thinking. It it worked well for me.
<?php
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/head_lib.php";
?>
What I was trying to do was pulla file called /head_lib.php from the root folder. It would not pull anything to build the webpage. The header, footer and other key features in sub directories would never show up. Until I did above it worked like a champ.
If you want code is running on multiple servers with different environments,then we have need
to use dirname(FILE) in an include or include_once statement.
reason is follows.
1. Do not give absolute path to include files on your server.
2. Dynamically calculate the full path like absolute path.
Use a combination of dirname(FILE) and subsequent calls to itself until you reach to the home of your '/myfile.php'.
Then attach this variable that contains the path to your included files.
In the root (www) I have two folders.
In the first folder, "folder1", I put a file called register.php.
In the next folder, "folder2", I put files called header.php and footer.php.
I need to include the header and footer files from folder2 in the register.php file.
How can i do this? I tried to use this include ../folder2/header.php
..but it does not work
On some configurations, adding ./ (current dir) does the trick like this:
include './../folder2/header.php';
Alternatively, you can specify in terms of document root:
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . 'folder2/header.php';
<?php include( $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . 'folder2/header.php' ); ?>
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/folder2/header.php';
would work from any directory of the site
it is called absolute path and it's the only reliable way to address a file
However, in real it should be something like
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/cfg.php';
// some code
include $TPL_HEADER;
using a variable, previously defined in cfg.php
However, it may fail too. Because you can be just wrong about these paths
And here goes your main problem:
but it does not work
There is no such thing as "it does not work"
There is always a comprehensive error message that tells you what exactly doesn't work and what it does instead. You didn't read it yourself, and you didn't post it here to let us show you a correct path out of these error messages.
include files should generally be kept outside of the server root.
lets say your setup is;
www/website1
and
www/includes
Then you php.ini file, or .htaccess file should stipulate that
include_path=www/includes
then from any of your files, in any directory, no matter how far down the trees they go you simply do:
include 'myfile.php';
where myfile.php is at www/includes/myfile.php
Then you can stop worrying about these issues
include dirname(__FILE__).'/../folder2/header.php';
Try This it is work in my case
<?php require_once __DIR__."/../filename.php";?>
As the PHP manual states here $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] is "The document root directory under which the current script is executing, as defined in the server's configuration file." For this example, $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] will work just fine but. . . By using the new "magic constants" provided in >= PHP 5.3, we can make this code a little safer.
Put your includes in a subfolder, and use the magic constant DIR to make a reference to the included files. DIR returns the directory of the currently executing php file. By using this, you can move your folder containing all your includes anywhere you like in your directory structure, and not need to worry if your includes will still work.