Trouble with / vs ./ vs ../ and absolute and relative paths

Question

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?

Answer 1

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

Answer 2

One way to deal with this is this:

• Have a central configuration file (eg /myproject/config/bootstrap.php

• In that configuration file, define a global root for your application. Eg

  define("APP_ROOT", realpath(dirname(__FILE__)."/.."));

• Include that configuration file in every PHP file. Eg

  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.

Answer 3

You can use relative paths in conjuntion with dirname( __FILE__ )

So in your codestart file write:

require_once dirname(__FILE__).'/../config/config.php';

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

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.