how can I get a URL from an absolute folder path? - php

I have a php function that is moving files for me. It requires absolute paths to place those files (/Applications/MAMP/HTdocs/mysite/myfolder)
how can a turn this folder path string into a url (http://mysite.com/myfolder) so that I can create links to the files on the fly?
I do not know necessarily the names of the folders, as the software could be run in many locations.
Many thanks.

Obviously, you need to know server root for such a calculation.
Luclikly, $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] contains this path.
So, just subtract server root path from the given path:
$path = '/Applications/MAMP/HTdocs/mysite/myfolder';
$approot = substr($path,strlen($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']));
check if you have a drive letter in the DOCUMENT_ROOT, and correct the code if necessary
Note that adding http://mysite.com is unnecessary and useless. just /myfolder/ is what you really need.

You can check for this value: $_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"];
That is the root of your website. If you have the folder and replace the $_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"] with the $_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"] you will get the URL to the folder/file

If mysite folder is within HTdocs then you can access it using http://yourdomain/mysite, (if HTodcs is your home directory)

Related

access root file from subdomain in PHP

Is it possible to include file from the ftp's root in a script in a subdomain ?
This doesn't work for me:
include($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/joomla.php');
Can someone help me ?
I think first you need to determine where is your subdomain files are placed and echo the $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] command to see the full path then you can combine two paths and make necessary adjustments.
Usually but not always, subdomain files are placed in a folder one level up then the main site's root folder so you may need to replace the folder name according to your needs in the output of server document folder function.
To give an example if your domain files are in a path like
/var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/
and if your subdomain path is like
/var/www/vhosts/example.com/subdomain/
then you will need to replace httpdocs with subdomain (or the other way around) in the output where you call $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']

absolute url paths for localhost to file sytem

I'm trying to use an absolute path to set the href of an anchor. The path however doesn't work, but if I change to a relative path everything works fine.
Works:
include_once('../../Utils/utils/html/banner.html');
Doesn't Work:
include_once('http://localhost/apps/MyVyn/Utils/utils/html/banner.html');
include_once('/apps/MyVyn/Utils/utils/html/banner.html');
What exactly am I doing wrong?
If you want more of an "absolute" path, you can prepend your include path with $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']. Just a thought.
include_once($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/apps/MyVyn/Utils/utils/html/banner.html');
Let's take a look at both examples:
include_once('http://localhost/apps/MyVyn/Utils/utils/html/banner.html');
This won't work because the apps folder isn't in the document root. PHP (with appropriate privileges from apache/or whatever) will be able to access anything on the file system. A direct link to 127.0.0.1, localhost, or a website name will only be able to access files on the document root.
include_once('/apps/MyVyn/Utils/utils/html/banner.html');
This won't work either because you're requesting that PHP look for a folder /apps on the top-level folder of your drive. For example, /root/*, but instead, you're saying, /apps/* which does not exist.
Think of /apps/ in terms of Windows such as C:\apps, which does not exist. If you want your PHP to look at a folder in the same directory, you need to remove the leading slash, such as apps/*.

Getting the absolute pathname in php

Consider the following scenario: I have a vhost defined to some paths on my home folder.
say ~/web/project-name/ is my root. such that when i point to http://some-name/ it points to the index.php inside ~/web/project-name.
I've a Model-View-Controller framework (self-made/minimal) and my views contains different client side links (js, or css, or a href) Since I made my working folder root, i used absoulte path names (for instance /client/css/my.css ).
Now a friends comes in takes my projects. Copies it to /var/www/ So, now the contents of my website is not root, so my links in the views does not work?
What is the best way to mitigate the above problem?
I tried defining a constant ROOT as define('ROOT', dirname(__FILE__)) in my index.php, but it returns the absolute path like /home/cipher/...
I want to make a function such that it returns the path of my index.php relative to the web root!
Thanks in advance!
You might want to try a $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].

php paths that work on both local (mac) and remote server

I'm testing a website on my local machine and I'm wondering what would be the best way to write paths to make sure they work when I upload the site to its final location.
In general I'm a bit confused about paths, and in many cases I have to 'tweak' each path until it works, so wouldn't want to be forced to do the same on a production site!
I'm not clear when to use $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].
For example, I have a directory that I want to scan, which is just under the root. So why can't I just use "/dirname"?
$dir = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/uploads'; //this works
// $dir = "/uploads"; //this doesn't work
if (is_dir($dir)) {
//do something..
}
I'm not clear when to use
$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']. For
example, I have a directory that I
want to scan, which is just under the
root. So why can't I just use
"/dirname"?
When you work with paths in the php file the root (/) is the root of the filesystem, not the root you get when you visit your website.
So $dir = "/uploads"; gives you the filesystem root.
To minify your problems I would declare a variable in a configuration file that specifies the root of your php application, and use that path+whatever more is needed.
As adamse mentioned, the reason you can't use the '/path' is because it points to the root of the filesystem.
However, instead of declaring a variable that defines the root, I recommend using dirname(__FILE__) to retrieve the full path to the directory that the calling file is in.
From there, append relative path information to the file you want and you end up with a complete path, fully dynamically.
For example, if you want to include the 'header.php' file in the directory above the file that you wish to include it in use:
include(dirname(__FILE__) . '/../header.php');
The beauty of that is that PHP will always automatically convert the forward slash to the directory separator required for the host OS.
I would define a variable/constant that describes the absolute filesystem path to the application. Something like this:
$appDir = rtrim(str_replace('\\', '/', realpath(dirname(__FILE__))), '/');
Then you have this base path you can address your application’s files from:
include $appDir.'/library/foo/bar.php';
Or you even change your include path to that directory:
set_include_path($appDir);

How do I set an absolute include path in 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".

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