Smarty template not working on local server - php

Question

I am having trouble getting the Smarty Template Engine to work correctly on my local test server. I have it set up like this:
<?php
// put full path to Smarty.class.php
require('smarty/Smarty.class.php');
$smarty = new Smarty();
$smarty->testInstall();
$smarty->setTemplateDir('smarty/templates');
$smarty->setCompileDir('smarty/templates_c');
$smarty->setCacheDir('smarty/cache');
$smarty->setConfigDir('smarty/configs');
$smarty->assign('name', 'Ned');
$smarty->display('index.tpl');
?>
However, I keep getting this error:
Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'SmartyException' with message 'Unable to load template file 'index.tpl'' in /var/www/WEBSITE/smarty/sysplugins/smarty_internal_templatebase.php:127 Stack trace: #0 /var/www/WEBSITE/smarty/sysplugins/smarty_internal_templatebase.php(374): Smarty_Internal_TemplateBase->fetch('index.tpl', NULL, NULL, NULL, true) #1 /var/www/WEBSITE/test.php(13): Smarty_Internal_TemplateBase->display('index.tpl') #2 {main} thrown in /var/www/WEBSITE/smarty/sysplugins/smarty_internal_templatebase.php on line 127
I used the testInstall function and this was returned:
Smarty Installation test...
Testing template directory...
/var/www/SteamKing/templates is OK.
Testing compile directory...
FAILED: /var/www/SteamKing/templates_c is not writable.
Testing plugins directory...
/var/www/SteamKing/smarty/plugins is OK.
Testing cache directory...
FAILED: /var/www/SteamKing/cache is not writable.
Testing configs directory...
FAILED: ./configs/ does not exist.
Testing sysplugin files...
... OK
Testing plugin files...
... OK
Tests complete.
I went through the whole making sure the folders are actually writable and everything but I still get the error. Any ideas?

Answer 1

Well for one thing the paths to your templates are wrong where you're assigning paths. The path is /var/www/SteamKing not smarty/
It's usually a good idea to use absolute paths so you can move your files around without worrying about where your templates go.
As for why your cache and template_c is not writable you need to show the actual paths or show the command you used to try to make them writable.