i am very new to php, i am used to writing .net, and i am finding the includes hard to understand and was hoping someone could help me understand how to correctly use an include once in a file, rather than inside each function..
take the following as an example
<?php
include 'test.php';
function test($a)
{
echo $value_from_test_php;
}
?>
the above code does not seem to work... however the below does
<?php
function test($a)
{
include 'test.php'
echo $value_from_test_php;
}
?>
i am having a hard time figuring out how to make an include work for all functions inside a file, rather then including it inside each function, any advice is greatly appreciated!
It's the scope of variable which is troubling you rather than includes, in PHP generally includes are used where there's a common page/markup to be included on each page, such as footer, header, etc
There are 4 types
include
include_once
require
require_once
The only difference is include will throw you an error if something goes wrong and will continue to execute the script where require will halt the further execution
You'll get everything here on includes - PHP Documentation
It all depends what is inside the file that you are include-ing! I would never, ever, suggest using include inside a function (or loop, or pretty much anything with brackets). Remember, the contents of the file being included are literally just "plopped in" place, right where the include statement is. So whatever scope (global, class, function, etc.) you're in when you include, is the scope that its contents will be declared in.
Put full class and function definitions in files, and include them at the top of the files where they are going to be used.
Your issue is not related to includes, but rather variable scope. By default a variable defined outside a function is not available within the function.
It's difficult to suggest the best solution without knowing exactly what it is you're trying to do, but the documentation (linked above) should get you started.
First example is not working because you use variable from global scope, if you want to use it then replace $value_from_test_php to $GLOBALS['my_var_name']
Related
First, I do not hope this question is too stupid for stackoverflow, but I am quite new to php and do not have much experience.
I have the file page.php and the file sendTestMail.php and I would like to run the file sendTestMail.php with specific parameters.
I am calling sendTestMail.php like that:
require_once WPGAMAIL_PATH.'sendTestMail.php';
And I need to set two array parameters $wp_set and $ga_set.
Any suggestions what a best-practice solution is?
I appreciate your replies!
You have tons of possiblities, however without knowing the structure within your sendTestMail.php I can only give you hints.
You should basically create a function within your sendTestMail.php - e.g.
<?php
function sendTestMail($wp_set, $ga_set) {
/* your actual code ...*/
}
If you now require the script you can simply call the function an pass the parameters
<?php
require_once WPGAMAIL_PATH.'sendTestMail.php';
sendTestMail('john', 'doe'); // or whatever your parameters are
Other examples of how to pass variables to included / required files can be found here
PHP pass variable to include
From what I understand using something like require_once will essentially copy and paste the code from one file into another, as if it was in the first file originally.
Meaning if I was to do something like this it would be valid
foo.php
<?php
require_once("bar.php");
?>
bar.php
<?php
print "Hello World!"
?>
running php foo.php will just output "Hello World!"
Now my question is, if I include require_once inside a method, will the file that is included be loaded when the script is loaded, or only when the method is called?.
And if it is only when the method is called, is there any benefit performance wise. Or would it be the same as if I had kept all the code into one big file.
I'm mainly asking as I've created an API file, which handles a large amount of calls, and I wan't to simplify the file. (I know I can do this just be creating separate classes, but I thought this would be good to know)
(Sorry if this has already been asked, I wasn't sure what to search for)
It will only include when the method is called, but have you looked at autoloading?
1) Only when the method is called.
2) I would imagine there's an intangible benefit to loading on the fly so the PHP interpreter doesn't have to parse extra code if it's not being used.
I usually use the include('bar.php'); i use it for when i use databvase information, i have a file called database.php with login info and when the file loads it calls it right up. I don't need to call up the function. It may not be the most effective and efficient but it works for me. You can also use include_once... include basically does what you want it to, it copies the code essencially..
As others have mentioned, yes, it's included just-in-time.
However, watch out for variable definitions (require()ing from a method will only allow access to local variables in that method's scope).
Keep in mind you can also return values (i.e. strings) from the included file, as well as buffer output with ob_start() etc.
I'm trying to include my AdSense code inside a variable like this:
$ad = include_once('../adsense/ad.php');
echo $ad;
In ad.php I'm doing this:
<?php
return '<script>...</script>';
?>
It's showing my AsSense ad but only once. After that, it's outputting 1. Am I missing something here?
You called include_once(), so the file will only be included one time. After that, it will return TRUE because the call succeeded, but no new content was included. Use plain include() instead if you need to use it multiple times.
$ad = include('../adsense/ad.php');
use include instead of include_once. That, or only call include_once once ;)
I think you may be better off using a function for this. You can get the same result, in a much more 'conventional' manner.
Using return in an include will work with include instead of include_once, as mentionned in other answers, but keep in mind include used in this manner makes for non-conventional code structures, harder to re-use, won`t show up in function list definition, among other inconveniances.
So I'm working on a PHP app and trying to make everything moduler. I have an index.php file that includes other php files. The first file included is settings.php which has my postgres credentials defined so they can be accessed elsewhere. The second file is connect.php that has a function you can pass sql to and it will return $result. The third file has functions that call the sql function and receive $result and parse it. In the third file, I can read the results of the $result however if I try if($result) it breaks and isset/empty have no effect.
Anyone have any ideas on a way to make this work, or is my structure just terrible?
Thanks so much!
Mike
let's say you have the following three files:
inc1.php
<?php
$foo = 'hello';
?>
inc2.php
<?php
echo $foo;
?>
main.php
include('inc1.php');
include('inc2.php');
it should echo "hello". however, passing variables around among files is a bad idea, and can lead to a lot of confusing, hard-to-follow code. If you need to pass variables around, use functions and/or objects so that you can at least see where they are coming from.
beyond that though, it's difficult to tell exactly what your problem is without seeing the code in question.
I would really try to switch to OOP. This makes things a lot of easier. If you just have to deal with classes, their methods and attributes you only have to include the classes and not this choas of functions. So I would recommend, give it a go ...
I want to define something like this in php:
$EL = "\n<br />\n";
and then use that variable as an "endline" marker all over my site, like this:
echo "Blah blah blah{$EL}";
How do I define $EL once (in only 1 file), include it on every page on my site, and not have to reference it using the (strangely backwards) global $EL; statement in every page function?
Most PHP sites should have a file (I call it a header) that you include on every single page of the site. If you put that first line of code in the header file, then include it like this on every page:
include 'header.php';
you won't have to use the global keyword or anything, the second line of code you wrote should work.
Edit: Oh sorry, that won't work inside functions... now I see your problem.
Edit #2: Ok, take my original advice with the header, but use a define() rather than a variable. Those work inside functions after being included.
Sounds like the job of a constant. See the function define().
Do this
define ('el','\n\<\br/>\n');
save it as el.php
then you can include any files you want to use, i.e
echo 'something'.el; // note I just add el at end of line or in front
Hope this help
NOTE please remove the '\' after < br since I had to put it in or it wont show br tag on the answer...
Are you using PHP5? If you define the __autoload() function and use a class with some constants, you can call them where you need them. The only aggravating thing about this is that you have to type something a little longer, like
MyClass::MY_CONST
The benefit is that if you ever decide to change the way that you handle new lines, you only have to change it in one place.
Of course, a possible negative is that you're calling including an extra function (__autoload()), running that function (when you reference the class), which then loads another file (your class file). That might be more overhead than it's worth.
If I may offer a suggestion, it would be avoiding this sort of echoing that requires echoing tags (like <br />). If you could set up something a little more template-esque, you could handle the nl's without having to explicitly type them. So instead of
echo "Blah Blah Blah\n<br />\n";
try:
<?php
if($condition) {
?>
<p>Blah blah blah
<br />
</p>
<?php
}
?>
It just seems to me like calling up classes or including variables within functions as well as out is a lot of work that doesn't need to be done, and, if at all possible, those sorts of situations are best avoided.
#svec yes this will, you just have to include the file inside the function also. This is how most of my software works.
function myFunc()
{
require 'config.php';
//Variables from config are available now.
}
Another option is to use an object with public static properties. I used to use $GLOBALS but most editors don't auto complete $GLOBALS. Also, un-instantiated classes are available everywhere (because you can instatiate everywhere without telling PHP you are going to use the class). Example:
<?php
class SITE {
public static $el;
}
SITE::$el = "\n<br />\n";
function Test() {
echo SITE::$el;
}
Test();
?>
This will output <br />
This is also easier to deal with than costants as you can put any type of value within the property (array, string, int, etc) whereas constants cannot contain arrays.
This was suggested to my by a user on the PhpEd forums.
svec, use a PHP framework. Just any - there's plenty of them out there.
This is the right way to do it. With framework you have single entry
point for your application, so defining site-wide variables is easy and
natural. Also you don't need to care about including header files nor
checking if user is logged in on every page - decent framework will do
it for you.
See:
Zend framework
CakePHP
Symfony
Kohana
Invest some time in learning one of them and it will pay back very soon.
You can use the auto_prepend_file directive to pre parse a file. Add the directive to your configuration, and point it to a file in your include path. In that file add your constants, global variables, functions or whatever you like.
So if your prepend file contains:
<?php
define('FOO', 'badger');
In another Php file you could access the constant:
echo 'this is my '. FOO;
You might consider using a framework to achieve this. Better still you can use
Include 'functions.php';
require('functions');
Doing OOP is another alternative
IIRC a common solution is a plain file that contains your declarations, that you include in every source file, something like 'constants.inc.php'. There you can define a bunch of application-wide variables that are then imported in every file.
Still, you have to provide the include directive in every single source file you use. I even saw some projects using this technique to provide localizations for several languages. I'd prefer the gettext way, but maybe this variant is easier to work with for the average user.
edit For your problem I recomment the use of $GLOBALS[], see Example #2 for details.
If that's still not applicable, I'd try to digg down PHP5 objects and create a static Singleton that provides needed static constants (http://www.developer.com/lang/php/article.php/3345121)
Sessions are going to be your best bet, if the data is user specific, else just use a conifg file.
config.php:
<?php
$EL = "\n<br />\n";
?>
Then on each page add
require 'config.php'
the you will be able to access $EL on that page.