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.
Related
I've followed different guides in uploading my Laravel project in Hostinger, but unfortunately there is always an error, it won't load the index.php.
Here is the structure in my file manager.
https://imgur.com/a/3lLX9d3
This is my public files in the public_html
https://imgur.com/a/3xkf7PL
This is the code inside index.php
require __DIR__.'/../sample/vendor/autoload.php';
$app = require_once __DIR__.'/../sample/bootstrap/app.php';
When I try to open the site.
https://imgur.com/a/c1odO4A
Did I miss something?
For some more clarification on the issue, I decided to post an answer.
The main problem that provided code has is
require __DIR__.'/../sample/vendor/autoload.php';
$app = require_once __DIR__.'/../sample/bootstrap/app.php';
Both paths are probably invalid. Judging by earlier comments, the foders don't exist.
According to Manual _DIR_ will hold the directory of a current file - actually more correct would be sayin it holds a directory of a file in which it resides.
_DIR_ variable is hard to work with, when it comes to creating absolute paths, because it already is almost an absolute path of a current file.
There are several other ways to get the correct path, and among them the most basic, probably easiest and probably fastest would be using $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'], which holds
The document root directory under which the current script is executing, as defined in the server's configuration file. From Php Manual
I will try to provide some exaples which show the issues with _DIR_ variable and how $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] can be used.
I will also be somewhat replicating your structure at a very basic level.
NOTE: All my examples are running on a localhost under Windows, which only further will prove that _DIR_ is un-reliable
I took your file structire and simlified it to just two folders, one file in each folder. My relative file structure looks literally like:
public_html/index.php and sample/include.php.
Now inside index.php first you put this code
<?php
echo __DIR__.'/../sample/include.php<br>';
?>
Which will output C:\xampp\htdocs\myWordpress\public_html/../sample/include.php when I run it. The output is a valid path on Windows though and doing require on it should work.
Now I am changing index.php to
<?php
echo __DIR__.'/sample/include.php<br>';
?>
NOTE: i basically only removed /../ from the path.
When i run it again - the output will be C:\xampp\htdocs\myWordpress\public_html/sample/include.php which will be a very invalid path on Windows. - folder does not exist.
The two examples above proove that _DIR_ variable is un-reliable.
Now consider the following index.php
<?php
echo $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/sample/include.php<br>';
?>
When I run this - it will output `For some more clarification on the issue, I decided to post an answer.
The main problem that provided code has is
require __DIR__.'/../sample/vendor/autoload.php';
$app = require_once __DIR__.'/../sample/bootstrap/app.php';
Both paths are probably invalid paths, since both probably do not exist.
According to Manual _DIR_ will hold the directory of a current file - actually more correct would be sayin it holds a directory of a file in which it resides.
_DIR_ variable is hard to work with, when it comes to creating absolute paths, because it already is almost an absolute path.
There are several other ways to get the correct path, and among them the most basic, probably easiest and probably fastest would be using $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'], which holds
The document root directory under which the current script is executing, as defined in the server's configuration file. From Php Manual
I will try to provide some exaples which show the issues with _DIR_ variable and how $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] can be used.
I will also be somewhat replicating your structure at a very basic level.
NOTE: All my examples are running on a localhost under Windows
I took your file structire and simlified it to just two folders, one file in each folder. My relative file structure looks literally like:
public_html/index.php and sample/include.php.
Now inside index.php first you put this code
<?php
echo __DIR__.'/../sample/include.php<br>';
?>
Which will output C:\xampp\htdocs\myWordpress\public_html/../sample/include.php when I run it. The output however is valid path on Windows and doing require on it should work.
Now I am changing index.php to
<?php
echo __DIR__.'/sample/include.php<br>';
?>
NOTE: i basicallyc only removed /../ from the path.
When i run it again - the output will be C:\xampp\htdocs\myWordpress\public_html/sample/include.php which is a very invalid path on Windows. The folder does not exist.
Now consider the following index.php
<?php
echo $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/sample/include.php<br>';
?>
When I run this - it will output C:/xampp/htdocs/myWordpress/sample/include.php which is an Existing, Valid Path, that can be later used in require for example.
A working example that shows the usage and the output differense between _DIR_ and $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] will probabply look like below
index.php
<?php
echo 'Directory of index.php file is:<span style="color:red">'. __DIR__.'</span></br>';
echo 'File include.php will be included from:<span style="color:red">'. $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/sample/include.php</span></br>' ;
require_once $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/sample/include.php";
?>
include.php
<?php
echo 'Directory of include.php file determined by `__DIR__` is:<span style="color:red">'. __DIR__.'</span></br>';
echo 'Directory of include.php file determined by usage of $_SERVER[\'DOCUMENT_ROOT\']:<span style="color:red">'. $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/sample/include.php</span></br>';
?>
I made the paths red, to bring extra attention to them.
This example will show that __DIR__ and $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] return different results, on the same system, on the same virtual server.
DIR can also be used to achive the same result with pure Windows paths - it will be ugly though.
Adding line
echo 'The valid directory of include.php file using __DIR__ is:<span style="color:red">'.__DIR__.'\\..\\sample\\</span></br>';
to index.php will somewhat show that DIR can be used on Windows, and Windows only!, on Unix this should and would fail. It also shows that it's usage is somewhat platform specific, which also means not very reliable.
EDIT
The example above is actually very bad. It shows wrong and ugly coding. And I would not have shown it, if I have't seen an actual production code like this once. (Not mine)
The bottom line for all these examples is - Use $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] in creating paths and do not use __DIR__.
I hope my examples somewhat show why i think $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] is a better idea.
Edit 1 I guess my links to doc's and explanation were not that good.
Judging by the images of your file structure your paths should be:
require $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/sample/vendor/autoload.php';
$app = require_once $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/sample/bootstrap/app.php';
But that really depends on what $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] contains. And what the relative paths to $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] contain.
I have a directory root:
index.php
includes/
template.php
testfile.php
phpFiles/
processInput.php
testfile.php
index.php:
require_once("includes/template.php");
template.php:
require_once("includes/phpFiles/processInput.php")
processInput.php:
require_once("testfile.php")
require_once("../testfile.php")
This code will work when you run index.php, of course it will not work when you run template.php.
As you can see, index.php includes template.php like normal. But in template.php, you have to include like if you are in the directory that index.php is in. But then, in processInput.php, you include as if you are in the directory that processInput.php is in.
Why is this happening, and how can I fix it so that the include path is always the directory of the file that the require is done in? The second included file have the same include path as the requested file, but the next one does not.
Thanks for your help!
EDIT: The strange thing is that I've included classes in a class folder. And it included other files as it is supposed to, even though the paths are relative. WHY does this happen, and how can I fix it?
VERY IMPORTANT EDIT: I just realized that all this is because in my example, the inclusion in includes/phpFiles/processInput.php includes a file in the same directory: require_once("file in same dir.php"); This is the reason. If you are including a file with out specifying anything more than the filename, the include_path is actually the dir where the file the require is written in is in. Can anyone confirm this?
Use an absolute path.
require_once($_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.
When i use php include to include a page in my website all the paths in the file i include get messed up. The included page acts like it is in the same folder as the page im including from.
Is there way to avoid/fix this problem?
One way I try to get around this problem is by always including from where the file that is including the other file is based:
$here = dirname(__FILE__);
include($here."/../include.php");
// will include a file *allways* one level up from where *this* file is located
// and not the file that started the execution of the script.
I sometimes have files that are accessed from several different places and so the includes file path can become a bit hard to manage. So I usually try to include a configuration file at a known point then define paths to common include points.
// from a common config file
define("PATH_TO_CLASS", dirname(__FILE__)."/../class");
define("PATH_TO_MEDIA", dirname(__FILE__)."/../assets/media");
Then you can use in the file you've included the config file like:
include dirname(__FILE__)."/../config.php";
include PATH_TO_CLASS."/snassy.class.php";
What is your include path set to? If included.php is not the same directory as page.html, you can append to you existing include path.
<?php
$path = '/path/to/includes';
set_include_path(get_include_path() . PATH_SEPARATOR . $path);
?>
Try the PHP manual
You might need to set the include path correctly, for example via:
set_include_path(get_include_path() . PATH_SEPARATOR . 'YourPath');
Then you just need to include as if it were is the same directory:
include 'FileName.php';
No, that is the default behaviour of the php include function: It basically copies the contents of the included file into the including file. That way the instructions in the included file behave as if they were in the including file (because they are in a way).
You either have to refactor the instructions in you included file so they can operate from the folder of the including file, or add the folder of the included file to the include path.
You could use absolute paths? 'http://www.site.com/the/full/url/image.jpg'
Or even
$path = 'http://www.site.com';
and $path.'images/image.jpg' or whatever it is
Another answer for you. If things are unchangeable for some reason I've used chdir() to some success.
For example I had mobile users come from and use a different directory than the main site, but wanted to use all of the functions and classes of the main site, so I would chdir(/to/the/main/site/folder); right before calling the common code, which required different include paths. I would use sparingly though... as things can get confusing.
As many do I have a config.php file in the root of a web app that I want to include in almost every other php file. So most of them have a line like:
require_once("config.php");
or sometimes
require_once("../config.php");
or even
require_once("../../config.php");
But I never get it right the first time. I can't figure out what php is going to consider to be the current working directory when reading one of these files. It is apparently not the directory where the file containing the require_once() call is made because I can have two files in the same directory that have different paths for the config.php.
How I have a situation where one path is correct for refreshing the page but an ajax can that updates part of the page requires a different path to the config.php in the require_once() statement;
What's the secret? From where is that path evaluated?
Shoot, I was afraid this wouldn't be a common problem - This is occurring under apache 2.2.8 and PHP 5.2.6 running on windows.
The current working directory for PHP is the directory in which the called script file is located. If your files looked like this:
/A
foo.php
tar.php
B/
bar.php
If you call foo.php (ex: http://example.com/foo.php), the working directory will be /A/. If you call bar.php (ex: http://example.com/B/bar.php), the working directory will be /A/B/.
There is where it gets tricky. Let us say that foo.php is such:
<?php
require_once( 'B/bar.php' );
?>
And bar.php is:
<?php
require_once( 'tar.php');
?>
If we call foo.php, then bar.php will successfully call tar.php because tar.php and foo.php are in the same directory which happens to be the working directory. If you instead call bar.php, it will fail.
Generally you will see either in all files:
require_once( realpath( dirname( __FILE__ ) ).'/../../path/to/file.php' );
or with the config file:
// config file
define( "APP_ROOT", realpath( dirname( __FILE__ ) ).'/' );
with the rest of the files using:
require_once( APP_ROOT.'../../path/to/file.php' );
I like to do this:
require_once(dirname(__FILE__)."/../_include/header.inc");
That way your paths can always be relative to the current file location.
I use the dirname(__FILE__) thing like bobwienholt most the time, but what it could pay to do is have a base entry point that loads all your other code that defines a constant refereing to the root of the project, ie
define("ROOT",dirname(__FILE__).'/' );
and then later all you need to know is where the path is relative to root, ie:
require(ROOT . "/lib/tool/error.php");
note,
you should REALLY avoid paths with "../" at the start of them, they are not relative to the file, but relative to where you ARE and this creates broken-ass code.
cd foo
php bar/baz.php
-> some error saying it cant find the file
cd bar
php baz.php
-> suddenly working.
Important
If you use "../" notation, it takes complete ignorance of the PHP Include Path, And ONLY considers where the person whom is running it is.
I include this code at the top of every page:
//get basic page variables
$self=$_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
$thispath=dirname($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']);
$sitebasepath=$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'];
//include the global settings, variables and includes
include_once("$sitebasepath/globals/global.include.php");
Include and require both take either a relative path or the full rooted path. I prefer working with the full path and make all my references like the inlcude statement above. This allows me to enter a general variable $sitebasepath that handles account specific information that may change from machine to machine and then simply type the path from the webroot, ie. /globals/whatever_file.php
I also use the $self variable in forms that may call themselves to handle data input.
Hope that helps.
If you have sufficient access rights, try to modify PHP's include_path setting for the whole site. If you cannot do that, you'll either have to route every request through the same PHP script (eg. using Apache mod_rewrite) or you'll have to use an "initialization" script that sets up the include_path:
$includeDir = realpath(dirname(__FILE__) . '/include');
ini_set('include_path', $includeDir . PATH_SEPARATOR . ini_get('include_path'));
After that file is included, use paths relative to the include directory:
require_once '../init.php'; // The init-script
require_once 'MyFile.php'; // Includes /include/MyFile.php
Since require and require_once are very similar to include and include_once, all the documentation is posted under the "include" functions doc area on php.net From that page
Files for including are first looked
for in each include_path entry
relative to the current working
directory, and then in the directory
of current script. E.g. if your
include_path is libraries, current
working directory is /www/, you
included include/a.php and there is
include "b.php" in that file, b.php
is first looked in /www/libraries/
and then in /www/include/. If filename
begins with ./ or ../, it is looked
only in the current working directory.
Further, you can find all the current include paths by doing a "php -i" from the command line. You can edit the include path in your php.ini file, and also via ini_set(). You can also run the php_info() function in your page to get a printout of your env vars if the CLI is inconvenient.
The only place I've seen the path evaluated from is the file that you are currently editing. I've never had any problems with it, but if you are, you might want to provide more information (PHP version, OS, etc).
The path of the PHP file requested in the original GET or POST is essentially the 'working directory' of that script. Any "included" or "required" scripts will inherit that as their working directory as well.
I will either use absolute paths in require statements or modify PHP's include_path to include any path in my app I may want to use to save me the extra typing. You'll find that in php.ini.
include_path = ".:/list/of/paths/:/another/path/:/and/another/one"
I don't know if it'll help you out in this particular instance but the magical constants like FILE and DIR can come in handy if you ever need to know the path a particular file is running in.
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/language.constants.predefined.php
Take a look at the function getcwd. http://us2.php.net/getcwd