What is set_include_path Relative to, in PHP? Is it the folder where the PHP.exe resides? Is it the webroot? In other words, what folder would set_include_path('/') or set_include_path('.') be referring to?
Relative paths are resolved from the location of the file where include or another function that uses include_path is used in (see description of include_path):
Using a . in the include path allows for relative includes as it means the current directory. However, it is more efficient to explicitly use include './file' than having PHP always check the current directory for every include.
/ would describe the root of your filesystem and . the current directory.
The filesystem root and the current directory, respectively.
set_include_path("/") would make the include path be the root folder of the filesystem, and I would take a guess that you'd probably not want to do that as there might be issues with exposing files that you don't want to be seen.
If your php file was /home/users/joebloggs/htmlroot/index.php, then set_include_path(".") would make the include path the directory that the php file is in, ie the "htmlroot" directory.
On *nix systems and Windows Apache the / is the root of the file system. While on IIS / points to the root of the vhost.
What I do to handle this is define a LOC constant in my index.php so I never get confused when including files.
define('LOC', dirname(__FILE__));
include(LOC . '/files/file.php');
Related
Within my PHP I wish to instead of using ../ I want to be able to just use ROOT/Directory/File
My host's actual root is filled with a variety of files therefore it is difficult to do it through the actual way.
I want a file path to be for example:
ACTUALROOT/WEBSITEROOT/DIR/DIR/FILE
The documentation on using DIR is incredibly confusing can anyone clear this up in a logical way?
From php manual:
__DIR__ The directory of the file. If used inside an include, the directory of the included file is returned. This is equivalent to
dirname (__FILE__). This directory name does not have a trailing slash
unless it is the root directory.
Is this, for example, a good idea?
require_once($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/include.php');
If you have two virtual hosts on the same server, one for live and one for development, with different Apache DocumentRoots, this would avoid having to include absolute paths when the source of the include is unknown, and may be in any directory.
(Note: file paths in the following section are relative to the web root. They would in fact be like /var/www/app/core/init.php, where /var/www/app is the web root)
For instance: I have an /core/init.php which is called using relative paths from places all over the website (/file.php, /dir/file.php or /dir/dir/file.php).
This init.php then includes several function pages, in the fund directory, a subdir of /core (as in /core/func/userfunctions.php).
So, in init.php, I can use the $_SERVER method, because it breaks if I use a relative path and try to call functions from a page like /dir/file.php.
I can't see any problem with it, but in general what could go wrong?
I've seen cases where $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] is not set or is not what you would expect (i.e. not set in CLI or old IIS, or invalid in certain CGI setups).
For that reason you can use dirname(__FILE__) to obtain the path of the script that line is called in. You can then reference relative paths from there e.g.
include dirname(__FILE__) . '/../../other/file.php';
I go with the above method when the directory structure of the files is known and is not subject to change.
If DOCUMENT_ROOT is not available, the following is a suitable replacement:
substr($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'], 0, -strlen($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']));
You don't need to do this. PHP looks for the included file in the document root by default.
You can use set_include_path($new_include_path) to change this behaviour, or edit include_path in the php config file.
Also, from http://php.net/manual/en/reserved.variables.server.php:
'DOCUMENT_ROOT'
The document root directory under which the current script is executing, as defined in the server's configuration file.
For example, if you use URL rewriting, you will be very happy when you find out that the includes in your /there/are/so/many/paths/in/the/url/of/this/ page are still working!
I have many PHP files in
/
/client/
/user/
/config/
etc...
I want all my files to include /user/codestart.php. (Lots of functions etc)
Therefore:
All files in / have include("./user/codestart.php");
All files in /user/ have include("codestart.php");
All files in /client/ have include("../user/codestart.php");
The problem is that /user/codestart.php has include("../config/config.php"); (The MySQL ID and password)
When a file in / runs, such as /index.php, it includes ./user/codestart.php.
Then /user/codestart.php includes ../config/config.php, but it cannot see it, because it thinks it is calling it from /, instead of from /user/.
If I change
include("../config/config.php") to be
include("./config/config.php")
that fixes it for / files, but breaks it for/user/ and/client/ files.
Bottom line is that when one PHP file includes another file, PHP thinks it is operating from the location of the original file, not the calling file.
I need to use relative paths, not absolute paths. Absolute paths will not work in my situation.
Is there any way to solve this?
One way to deal with this is this:
Have a central configuration file (e.g. /myproject/config/bootstrap.php
In that configuration file, define a global root for your application. E.g.
define("APP_ROOT", realpath(dirname(__FILE__)."/.."));
Include that configuration file in every PHP file. E.g.
include("../config/bootstrap.php");
Whenever you reference some other file, use
include APP_ROOT."/includes/somefile.php";
Voilá - you have a fixed point in space (APP_ROOT) and can reference everything relative to that, no matter which directory you are in.
If you want to do it this way I suggest you make a seperate file for all your includes which is in a fixed dir, the root for example.
Then you reliably include all the files from there using
include __DIR__.'path/relative/from/includefile.php'
If your php verion is lower than 5.3 you should use dirname(__FILE__) instead of __DIR__ as mentioned by RiaD
You might like this php.net page
You can use relative paths in conjuntion with dirname(__FILE__)
So in your codestart file write:
require_once dirname(__FILE__).'/../config/config.php';
You can set the path that PHP uses to look for files, so that it contains all your folders. In index.php:
$folders = implode(PATH_SEPARATOR, array('user', 'config'));
set_include_path(get_include_path().PATH_SEPARATOR.$folders);
Then you can just do:
include("codestart.php");
and:
include("config.php");
This will work for index.php and all files that index.php includes.
use absolute paths. to get path to your root directory use $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'], ex.
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/user/codestart.php';
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/config/config.php';
It save you from absolute paths' problems.
I'm having problems with my include files. I don't seem to be able to figure out how to construct my URLs when I use require_once('somefile.php'). If I try to use an include file in more than one place where the directory structures are different, I get an error that the include file cannot be found.
In asp.net, to get my application root path, I can use ~/directory/file.aspx. The tild forward slash always knows that I am referencing from my website root and find the file no matter where the request comes from within my website. It always refers back to the root and looks for the file from there.
QUESTION: How can I get the root path of my site? How can I do this so I can reuse my include files from anywhere within my site? Do I have to use absolute paths in my URLs?
Thank you!
There is $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] that should have the root path to your web server.
Edit: If you look at most major php programs. When using the installer, you usually enter in the full path to the the application folder. The installer will just put that in a config file that is included in the entire application. One option is to use an auto prepend file to set the variable. another option is to just include_once() the config file on every page you need it. Last option I would suggest is to write you application using bootstrapping which is where you funnel all requests through one file (usually with url_rewrite). This allows you to easily set/include config variables in one spot and have them be available throughout all the scripts.
I usually store config.php file in ROOT directory, and in config.php I write:
define('ROOT_DIR', __DIR__);
And then just use ROOT_DIR constant in all other scripts.
Using $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] is not very good because:
It's not always matching ROOT_DIR
This variable is not available in CGI mode (e.x. if you run your scripts by CRON)
It's nice to be able to use the same code at the top of every script and know that your page will load properly, even if you are in a subdirectory. I use this, which relies on you knowing what your root directory is called (typically, 'htdocs' or 'public_html':
defined('SITEROOT') or define('SITEROOT', substr($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'], 0, strrpos($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'], 'public_html')) . 'public_html');
With SITEROOT defined consistently, you can then access a config file and/or page components without adapting paths on a script-by-script basis e.g. to a config file stored outside your root folder:
require_once SITEROOT . "/../config.php";
You should use the built in magic constants to find files. __FILE__ and __DIR__. If you are on PHP < 5.3 you should use dirname(__FILE__)
E.g.
require_once __DIR__.'/../../include_me.php';
$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] is not always guaranteed to return what you would expect.
Define it in a config file somewhere.
Assuming you're using an MVC style where everything gets routed through a single index.php then
realpath('.');
Will show you the path to the current working directory (i.e where index.php is)
So then you can define this as
define('PROJECT_ROOT', realpath('.'));
If it's not MVC and you need it to work for files in subfolders then you can just hard code it in a config file
define('PROJECT_ROOT', 'C:/wamp/www/mysite');
Then when including something you can do;
include PROJECT_ROOT . '/path/to/include.php';
You could alternativly set the base directory in your .htaccess file
SetEnv BASE_PATH C:/wamp/www/mysite/
Then in PHP you can reference it with $_SERVER['BASE_PATH']
Try this:
$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']
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".